newsminer.com

We are living in times when tightening the belt is a necessity. Heating fuel costs and gasoline costs have made us rethink even the simplest decision. Climbing into the car to go to the grocery store for a last minute item for dinner never before caused us to stop and wonder if we were being wasteful or extravagant.

Scarcity is a strange bedfellow for many of us. We have never worried with such reality about the paycheck covering our basic necessities. The money in our pockets seems scarce and precious. Too little money, too many responsibilities.   Someone once said, “If you wonder what God thinks about money, you should look at the people to whom he gives it.” God has never been a God of scarcity. God is a God of abundance.

Look at this passage from Psalm 136: “Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good, for God’s mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for God’s mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of Lord’s, for God’s mercy endures forever; who alone does great wonders, for God’s mercy endures forever; who by wisdom made the heavens, for God’s mercy endures forever; who spread out the earth upon the waters, for God’s mercy endures forever; who made the great lights — for God’s mercy endures forever; the sun to govern the day, for God’s mercy endures forever; the moon and the stars to govern the night, for God’s mercy endures forever. … Give thanks to the God of heaven, for God’s mercy endures forever.”   Strangely, it is in times of greatest financial hardship that people feel the most generous. At a time when most should be folding up their money and sticking it deeper in their pockets, many are giving it away for good causes. Somewhere, the God of abundance is smiling at those actions.   Experience is a great teacher. Through experience we have discovered that our God’s generosity has no limits. Just when you think that God should turn away from us for all the mistakes we’ve winked at, God enters our lives with unmistakable and undeserved blessings.

Insight is sponsored by the Tanana Valley Christian Conference.

The Rev. Paul Teyler is pastor at Fairbanks Lutheran Church.