Scarcity to Abundance

 Margaret Phillips, M.S.       Soaring Christian Counseling           Spiritual   Transformation

Scarcity to Abundance

     Jesus upon hearing of the death of John the Baptist, leaves by boat to go to a deserted place.  But multitudes followed him on foot. When he arrives he finds a multitude of people there “and when He saw them, He was moved with compassion and began healing the sick.”  The disciples began to realize how late it was, they were in a deserted area, and suggested that Jesus send the people back to villages so they could find food to eat.

      He says something that just sounds strange: “They do not need to go away.  You give them something to eat.”  So they begin to search and all they can find is a young boy with 5 loaves and 2 fishes.  

      This story is striking in so many ways.  Instead of Jesus being irritated that the crowds had followed Him, He was “filled with compassion.” And when a need arose, instead of running around in a panic,  He declared in essence,  the need could be met.  No surprise that Jesus was full of faith.

      I think of these as Red Sea moments: those times when it appears that we do not have what is called for.  I have put this in a category called the mentality of scarcity:  when it doesn’t seem I have enough.  One thing I love from the teachings of our beloved pastor emeritus at Belmont Church, Don Finto,  is his admonition to us to “not look with these eyes” and he would point to his fleshly eyes”.  “But” , he would go on to say, “look with spiritual eyes.” 

Now that takes some training at the spiritual gym.  

     So I set out on this course for a year:  to change my mind from a mentality of scarcity to abundance.  For six months, I would practice saying to myself, “I am enough.  My God is enough. And I have enough resources for what is needed.”  Then I took it up a notch for the following six months, practicing in my mind, “I am more than enough.  My God is more than enough.  And I have more than enough resources for what is needed.”  I find that in order to change a mental pattern, I have to work it in like yeast.....over and over and over.

      I really got drawn into this “rewiring” through my professional work with anxiety and fear patterns.  The basic root system of obsessive compulsive thinking is fear around three issues:  dirt, time, and money.  Dirt can represent contamination or it can represent disdain for disorganization. In other words, the need to bring order to one’s disordered world.  So on the top layer is the manifestation of obsessive compulsive behaviors OR thoughts.  The next layer down would be perfectionism.  The layer beneath that would be anxiety. The layer beneath that would be fear and at the bottom (the root), we would find unbelief.

     These issues can be rooted in physical deprivation in people’s history.  But they can also be rooted in emotional deprivation.  The lack of nurturance.  The lack of nutrients.  

      But I love a little saying that went around in the ’70’s.  It is God speaking and He says, “ I love you, but I love you too much to leave you that way.”    So may God love us that much AND may we love ourselves that much:  not just dealing with our flesh patterns, but actually asking God to change and transform our patterns.

      And I see this transformation as a two-way street.  This thought always takes me to the Potter’s Wheel.  It is a picture in my mind that occurs when I identify my own flesh patterns.  I say to myself, “Back to the wheel!”.  I picture myself as a lump of clay and I am flinging my clay back to the wheel.  I hear the “whrrrr, whrrrr, whrrr” of the wheel in my ears and I ask God to take off those rough edges, smooth them off.  Make me into a more useful vessel.  My part is the surrender.  My part is yielding to His gentle hands as He presses and imprints.  His hands are doing the pressing.  

        Sometimes I need to change my patterns from fear to faith.  Sometimes it is to switch from condemnation and judgment to compassion, sometimes scarcity to abundance.  The key is in recognizing when my pattern is toxic and not aligned with the transformed self.  Surrender.  Lean in.  And do it over and over.

        “”let the whole world see and know that things which were 

          cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown 

          old are being made new, and that all things are being brought

          to their perfection by him through whom all things were made,

          your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

                                                              from the Book of Common Prayer