Raspberries in Basket

Why Bother Thinking About Abundance?

Plenty?

My husband and I have finally arrived at the status of being “DINKS.” We have “double income” and “no kids”. There is only one hitch though. Our double income is limited because neither one of us works full-time any more. We both work part-time now. 

Though we’ve never aspired to be rich, I can think of two instances in our past where we were briefly lured away from contentment with what we had. 

Though living within our means has always been our guiding principle, there was a time when we were a little weary of living paycheck to paycheck. This made us ripe for pondering the possibility of making more money. Consequently, we found ourselves in a roomful of people, like ourselves, listening to a smooth seducer. He made his scheme sound easy, uncomplicated and stress free.

With our investment of buying a particular product, he told us, turning around and selling it would give us a straightforward profit. But of course, the proposition only good to the discontented people we were at the time. Consequently, after we made an initial investment, we came to our senses and backed out. 

Following on the heels of that plan, another one materialized. This one involved my husband’s commitment to going away from home for several weeks at a time to work in a different state. Again, the venture sounded promising. The amount of money that he could earn was more than double his present wage. But leaving home to do so would present a few stressors for me. We were still raising our impressionable sons and our sons needed their mother and their father, not just their mother. Again, we came to our senses and decided to stick with our original plan of consistently and continuously living within our means. 

As a result, over time, and within our wages, we’ve paid off our mortgage loan, kept food on the table, property taxes paid and built up our savings and investment portfolio. In short, without lusting and striving after money, we have plenty.   

An Abundance

Being lured away from something good toward something not so good, is common to man. There is quite the history of how we humans prefer to usurp God’s wisdom with our ways and means. 

For instance, I think of the story of the Israelites  in the desert. They were bemoaning the fact that back in Egypt, even though they were slaves, they had plenty to eat. But in the desert they were starving. 

But God, being the faithful God that he is, provided for them. Each morning when they awoke, like dew left on the ground, little pieces of manna were left for them to gather and eat. But, there were two stipulations. First, they were supposed to gather only what they needed for their family for that day. Saving any leftovers would only spoil, stink and rot. 

Secondly, on the sixth day, they were told to gather enough for two days. The manna that was being saved for the seventh day, the day of rest, would not spoil, stink or rot. 

Of course there were those who did not believe and had to test God’s wisdom only to find that what he’d said was really true. 

But, for forty years, during their wandering in the desert, the manna never ran out. As right as rain, they had what they needed every day.  

Why Bother?

Why bother thinking about abundance? Having more than plenty comes from the One who promises to provide everything we need when we need it. God does not short change us nor is God stingy. Instead, he says he came to give life in all its fullness, exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think. Go ahead and believe in the God whose grace, mercy, love and forgiveness is extravagant and superfluous. 

 

 

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