Living in Abundance: God is not Responsible for your Suffering
Often, we struggle with the concept of God as good. Difficulties and suffering in life harden our view of God. God becomes an easy target for all travesties and crises in life. However, God does not cause suffering! The cause of human suffering are the systems of humankind, existing outside of God’s original order: Eden.
Escaping Scarcity: Changing Your View of God
There is a psychological theory that proposes we project our hurt, pain, and suffering onto God. The theory purports, as infants, we are powerless to meet our own needs. As a result, humans view parents as extensions of themselves. When a child receives feeding, nurturing, and love; they develop a healthy sense of attachment and trust in a good world. However, when a parent neglects or abuses an infant; the baby learns to distrust the world. The infant perceives the world and their circumstances with misgiving and suspicion. Even if the infant eventually experiences a sense of security; they continue to view their caregivers and surroundings as unsafe.
Just like the neglected infant; your experiences of suffering and scarcity skew your view of the world. As you cope with negative life experiences, your resiliency protects you. However, as hardship and difficulties continually pommel you, your resilience wavers. You become desperate and wonder why God is not intervening. As the pain continues, you become angry and distant from God. Out of your grief grows bitterness. You begin to question if God even exists or cares. God becomes the distant parent. You no longer trust God for love, comfort, and safety. In your mind, God becomes your abuser.
Living in Abundance: Encountering Suffering & Scarcity
One of the hardest issues to reconcile when attempting to live in abundance is the ever-present nature of suffering and scarcity. You may see God's provision in your life in simple ways; but you continue to experience a gnawing feeling the floor will drop out underneath you when you least expect it. Even living in an abundance mindset, you will face scarcity and suffering. It is a lie that scarcity and suffering are not part of the world. To reconcile these factors with an abundant life, you must understand you live in two systems.
Living in Abundance: Awakening Divine Provision in Your Life
The story of the Feeding of the Multitude is the only miracle of Jesus narrated in all four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The story begins with Jesus seeking alone time with his disciples after hearing of John the Baptist beheading.
As Jesus and the disciples set off by boat, great crowds chased after them along the shoreline. The disciples pulled into an inlet, beaching the boat. When Jesus saw the crowd, he felt great compassion. Christ saw they were a sheep without a shepherd. As a result, Jesus spent the afternoon into the early evening teaching the crowd about the spiritual principles of the kingdom of God.
As dusk settled; the disciples expressed concern they were in a rural area and the crowds needed to be sent away to get shelter for the night. Jesus commanded his disciples to feed the crowd. However, the disciples protested, “It would take eight months' wages to feed a crowd this size”. In response, Jesus instructed his disciples to gather what food was available. They found five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus requested the crowd sit in groups of 50 and blessed the meager meal. Jesus broke the loaves and fish until it fed the entire crowd. There was such a great abundance of food; when everyone finished eating, the disciples gathered twelve baskets of leftovers.
Living in Abundance: Expanding Beyond Anxiety & Scarcity
We live in anxious times! The Covid epidemic brought about a universal sense of angst that settled across the entire world. Despite improvements in our country’s economic stability, our collective consciousness has become focused on shortages, dysfunctional supply chains, and ever-increasing prices because of inflation. While income has increased because of a shortage of employees; the price increases fueled by disruptions in the supply chain and corporate greed have gobbled up those pay raises.
The World Health Organization noted in March 2022 that the Covid pandemic increased rates of depression and anxiety by 25 percent. Changes in the work environment, social isolation, and lack of support from family and friends caused this sharp increase. Add to these stressors people’s fear of infection, grief over loss of loved ones, and financial concerns; is it no wonder that we all live in fear of scarcity?