Abundance?
I was recently captivated by the story of the resurrected Jesus appearing on the shore when the disillusioned disciples had gone fishing (John 21). Jesus calls out to them to see if they have caught anything, but they had nothing to show for a night on the water. Their discouragement and disorientation since the crucifixion is mirrored in their empty nets.
“Try throwing your nets on the other side of the boat,” Jesus calls out. And for some reason they decide to heed the advice of a stranger (they can’t yet see that it’s Jesus). All of a sudden, of course, the net is overflowing with a mass of writhing scaly bodies, which they pull to shore for breakfast over the fire. For some reason, I find it curiously funny that John names the number of fish that wind up in the net: 153 to be exact.
That number, 153, has come to represent for me the lavish provision of God. Abundance. More than enough.
[Which is why we call our monthly supporters of The Vining Center “the 153.”]
It’s ironic that I’m writing this just seconds after a conversation with Kellie about how I don’t have enough time to exercise more frequently. I’ll be honest, managing time has been part of the shadow side of my soul for a long time. Somehow I inherited a massive drive to accomplish and perform, fueled by a vague sense of peril that if I can’t validate each day with some indeterminate (but deeply sensed) quantity of tasks completed, I will lose my worth.
I know, it’s silly and it’s tragic and it’s diametrically opposed to the life of the Spirit…and yet, it has been my journey of recovery. Do you know the storyline of your recovery? Each of us has a holy gift, a True Self that is glorious and good…and also masked by the false self with its compulsive coping mechanisms. (The Enneagram describes these “selves” brilliantly.) We are all in recovery. To put it more bluntly, we are each in some kind of virtual 12-step group seeking to recover our True Selves. The Self that God knows and yearns for oneness with.
I think this is part of why I have been called so consistently to solitude and retreat—to break my addiction to busyness. And why my first book Soul Space was a manifesto of desire to change the compulsive patterns I had honed to perfection in a decade of pastoral ministry. And why my last book Gravitas emphasized the Benedictine priority of conversion, which I correlate with abundance. When we doubt that we can change, we doubt the lavish provision of God that makes changes possible.
Abundance is the oxygen of the soul. When we don’t get enough air, things go bad fast.
But let’s be honest, there is plenty of evidence in our lives to argue against abundance. In addition to often feeling like there’s not enough time, sometimes there’s not enough discernment…or enough money to go around…or enough love to go around. Or is that just a mis-perception of reality?
What if there is always enough of what we truly need? Or in the words of the band U2, “What you don’t have, you don’t need it now.” I have spent too much of my life fearing that there is not enough. Which is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy: When we believe that resources are scarce, then we must be competitive; we grasp and hoard, and then they become scarce. But when we believe that provision abounds, we can be compassionate and generous, sharing and multiplying like the loaves and fish. Ah, back to fish.
I’ll just say this, I like myself a whole lot more when I’m living in abundance—and I know that my True Self shows up in that space. I’m trusting, restful. In a word, happy. Maybe living with the expectation of abundance is the secret to happiness. Hmm.
growing the soul
What about you? How would your experience of life change if you expected abundant provision?
serving the world
How might you be more of a generous, generative effect upon the world…rather than just reacting anxiously to circumstances?