June 5, 2017 in Congregations, Stewardship
Stewardship Tip: Half Empty or Half Full?
Pastor Blair Morgan, Director for Evangelical Mission in Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod, has done a good job of talking about how we look at what we have, based on a workshop he attended with The Rev. Dr. Marty Stevens of Gettysburg Seminary:
One of the recurring themes that Dr. Stevens covered was the difference between God’s sense of and focus on abundance in creation and our human focus on scarcity. It seemed worth highlighting here this month.
There would be many ways of expressing this:
- God sees what is while we see what isn’t.
- God sees the forest while we see the trees.
- God works with what God can do while we only tend to work with what we can do.
- God sees the possible even as and where we see the impossible.
One way Dr. Stevens shared this perspective with us was through a discussion of the opening chapters of Genesis. She took our thoughts on these verses and built toward the opening half of chapter three and the temptation story. She made a comment that went something like this, “Just think of all of the trees and fruits that were available to Adam and Eve at that point, but they got caught up in wanting the one tree and the one fruit that was forbidden.”
There are so many situations in our lives where we have so much available to us, but we get caught up in a focus on what we do not or even cannot have!
This is a wonderful stewardship/discipleship reminder for our journeys through life with God.
Do we really know how blessed we are? Do we ever really stop to think about all with which God has blessed us? Do we do it personally? Do we do it as congregational leaders regarding our congregations?
It is so important as good stewards to keep a clear perspective on this reality of God’s abundance and our tendency to get caught up in scarcity thinking. Do we see our lives as half full or half empty?
Maybe we need to sing along with Bing Crosby with a lesser known tune that he sang to Rosemary Clooney in “White Christmas”:
“When you are worried and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep.
And you’ll go to sleep counting your blessings”
Just a thought for all of us who can get a little too caught up in what isn’t rather than what is!
Download: Tip of the month June 2017
