Scarcity?

Somewhere way back when, I absorbed a deeply-held notion that there wasn’t enough.

Don’t know where it came from, but for a big chunk of my life I battled a nagging certainty that I couldn’t relax. Somehow, there just wasn’t quite enough.

You’re wondering – enough of what? My answer is… anything. Whatever it was, I was afraid there might not be enough.

It’s called “scarcity mentality,” and I can tell you from experience it’s an unpleasant place to live.

One tragic outcome of scarcity mentality is suspicion. If everything is limited and there’s never enough, someone else’s success comes at my expense. Their gain must be my loss. Even when I know that’s crazy – intellectually – there’s that nagging, underlying sense of scarcity.

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I wish I could tell you this problem disappeared when I met Jesus.

You know that’s not how it works. He isn’t a magician who waves away our troubles.

When I talked yesterday about building longer tables rather than taller fences, I was speaking first to myself. My instinct pushes me to create a fence; Jesus spent his life tearing down fences and inviting people to tables.

As always, I think about this as it relates to the kids at the Home of Hope.

Whenever I’m tempted to think there isn’t enough, I try to remember kids born in a brothel with literally nothing. Kids who had no hope and no future, until someone showed up and took their hand and guided them to a safe place.

Now they have hope.

Hope. Changes. What’s. Possible.

That’s enough.

More next time…