I love Paul’s poetic language in this week’s epistle from Ephesians 3. These phrases live in my head:
...Rooted and grounded in love...
...Strengthened in your inner being...
...Love of Christ that surpasses knowledge...
...Riches of God’s glory...
...Abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…
What a blessing, drawing on the abundance of Spirit! The Psalm repeats the theme: The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season… satisfying the desire of every living thing. The message: all is provided. Nothing is scarce. Abundance is our birthright.
The theme is again reinforced in the stories of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and of Elisha feeding a hundred people with a few loaves of bread. They provide something from near-to-nothing. What’s necessary is brought forth by their connection to Spirit.
I think a lot about how we might re-connect ourselves to the abundance of Spirit at this level. How we might steward our attention, so that abundance is the ground from which we live. Even inside of experiences that seem to prove scarcity, and in light of lived experiences that may have caused us trauma.
This is a prayer to that end.
God, we are learning not to be distracted by scarcity,
And led by it into fear and worry
Into anxiety and defensiveness;
Ultimately into conflict with ourselves and others…