The Abundance vs. Scarcity Focus
and how they effect our most important relationships 



Where is your focus? Is it on the opening to the abundant blue sky above or on the scarcity of light found in the dark clouds?  Our focus drives what we choose to see and this effects EVERYTHING, especially our relationships.

We've been busy lately, living, parenting, just being part of this fallen world and sharing it with others.  One of the fruits of these labors has been a new direction of focus for me. One that has been a long time in the coming and at the same time heaven sent.  A focus on abundance rather than adversity. God is working and we are blessed, so I wanted to share.    

Scarcity	Abundance
Me first then you	Love first, Give first, Listen First
Control or all will be lost	Surrender and all will be gained
Me focused	Jesus focus
Others much change	I’m in need of refinement
Time is limited	Time well spent is never wasted
Fear of failure & betrayal	Faith and trust
Never enough	Thankful

Results of Scarcity vs. Abundance

Isolation vs. Intimacy

Anger & Bitterness vs. Joy

Pride/ Shame vs. Unceasing Love

Stubbornness vs. Growth & Fruit

Hurried vs. Calm in any storm

Tired & weak vs. Security & Strength

Do more vs. Give more

What results are you experiencing?
For the longest time I was experiencing isolation, anger, shame and a lack of desire to change. My life was characterized by tiredness, hurry and an absolute need to do more in order to feel valued.

I still struggle with the hurry part and sometimes the tired. But that might be because I also have a pretty busy schedule left over from my days of scarcity focus.  Sometimes I lapse into a "never enough attitude" and I find myself needing to focus on what I have and how blessed we are.

How to overcome the scarcity mindset:

Choose life and abundance.  Refuse to look back. Cling to the cross and the promise that Jesus gave us.

"The thief comes only to steal, slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10 ISV)

Did you catch that? The scarcity mind set is one that will only steal, slaughter and destroy. If you choose life and abandon the ways of the thief your focus will change.  As I said you must cling to the cross and nothing else.  You must drop everything else. EVERYTHING. So much that you are completely surrendered to whatever God has in mind.  When you do this you are so busy there that you rarely think about your past, your needs or your wants. Instead your focus in on BEING abundant. 

This focus is not about doing more good and less bad. It is about having an attitude of praise and prayer for your current circumstances and a trust that God is using them to refine you for either your good or that of someone that you love deeply.

 
Our Vertical Relationships: (Us and God)
Abundance – Intimacy, desiring and having God's presence.
Scarcity – unbelief, doubt and lack of relationship.

Feeling empty? Stuck? Isolated and Disconnected? Unloved or Disrespected?

Here are two questions to ask. The answers make all the difference:

• Do you believe that God can change you, improve your circumstances and love you?

• Have you embraced that you can not truly change in your own power. Nor can you overcome without a serious commitment to doing it God's way?

So now what? No matter what you are facing it is overcome-able:

"For nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37 NIV)

Embrace the attitude of abundance and put EVERYTHING into it.  Look at your life. Your priorities, your time.  Put EVERYTHING moving forward through the abundance vs. scarcity sift. Do not look back at the past. When you find yourself slipping, stop, pray and move ahead. When you find that you've fallen (because we do) stand up, confess, pray and and move ahead. 

Enlist support.  In this day and age you need at least one of each of these:
Prayer, Accountability and Encouragement partner. So this journey is one of community.  That can be a deal breaker for some. I pray it isn't for you.  I'll share what I've learned about that later.

Track your progress.... I'm not suggesting a schedule or a spreadsheet. I'm suggesting that you touch base with your progress regularly - daily in fact.  Are you making abundance-based choices and decisions?  Are you choosing to let go and surrender or are you picking up the old baggage and walking around with your fists and feelings clenched.  Depending on your challenge you may need to touch base with your progress 3 times a day or more.  If so, find a clock that chimes on the hour and when you hear it chime stop, pray for perseverance and consider what you are thankful for. If you can not do this at least three times a day then you are not ready to choose abundance. I pray you choose soon.  It really is a choice between life and death.  

  

Our Horizontal Relationships (Us and our spouse or spouse to be)

Let's talk Marriage..... and the scarcity vs. abundance focus in the next post.

The abundance focus can give you the sweet victory of surrender! The true "one flesh" intimacy that God talks about in Song of Solomon. Marriage the way God designed it to be.

More on that later...

Grace, Blessings and Thanksgiving unto Christ

JoAnne

Hope for the Seeking

...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
Isaiah 61: 2 - 4


Do you feel it? The motion behind all the stillness?  So many of us are "still" right now. Waiting. Seeking. Hoping. Trusting that God will move us...finally and beautifully forward even though we sit among the ashes.

Comments and questions like: "I feel like I've been through the wine press", "I feel that I'm being sifted" and "Now what am I to do?" have been brought to my praying hands and challenged me professionally and personally over the last few weeks.

And then God speaks through images and surreal moments about how HE is moving and that we need to let go and surrender our illusions of control.

And the layers, like an onion are being pealed off our hearts and laying us all bare.  Some with expectation, and joy and relief but others with tears and pain.

As He brings us to our knees...

And the hands slowly open. Formerly fists of steel, we find our still hands reaching to praise and say "Yes Lord". 

Like the rings in the oaks of righteousness, God grows our hearts for Him and for His will one layer at a time.

To grow we need to get low and reach out to the source of life...

Seeking God's Face certainly affects our gratitude with a shift in attitude that with each peeling back of the onion requires us to set our sights on:

...God's larger purpose and will AND what He has for us to do each day
...God's gifts  and blessings AND how He will be glorified through us.

So this "blog thing" really isn't about me at all. It's ALL about Him. And it really isn't about writing or sharing so much as it is about remembering and recording the ways that God glorifies himself usually around me and sometimes through me.  

Can you still the motion long enough to seek how He is glorifying himself around and through you?

Thanks and Blessings unto Jesus,
JoAnne

Joy...all bottled up

We've lost count of how many people have wistfully commented about Gideon's energy by saying something like: "If only we all had that much energy".  So many have commented in fact that as he is runing by or wiggling and jumping around he has taken to saying how much he's willing to share.

You'v noticed it haven't you?  That children have energy to spare and often have no idea what to do with it so they run, jump, wiggle and squeal. Yet I wonder if there is not a clue to God's great grace in this "fact of life".

I wonder if it's not spare energy at all but better described as "pure joy" energy. Energy that over-flows from pure joy that just can't be contained.

Watching our children the past few days... Isa getting ready to run and Gideon on full tilt. Smiles come easy. Cares are few and their perspective is so...small. So pure and untouched by the sin of this world.  Each moment they are seeking some thing larger. A discovery of joy in each moment.

A shrinking world is what I've fought against for a few years now. Some days overwhelmed by my past and grasping to hold onto some semblance of a "big world" career.  Both loving and fearing being enveloped day-in and day-out by my more important small wonders. 

After years of fighting I've found that I've surrendered the fight. Finally, letting go and reaching for the smaller perspective.  My entire view is flipped.  It is in the places where I feel small that Jesus has brought me to my knees. And in these same places where God has finally been given room in my heart to work and to set me free to be the child of God that He created.

Back to our children...It is their smallness that creates such a marvel because they give so much and just overflow with pure joy energy.  This is so opposite to us bigger, older children... who can be so out of touch with joy that we end up trying to bottle the little bit of engery that we can "create"  - in our own will - not in God's.  So instead we overflow with stress rather than joy and we have no "spare energy".

Here's the funny thing about it. We, adult women and men of the Word are simply one choice away from being bottles overflowing with pure joy. Our bottles are likely cracked and chipped yet we too can overflow with the joy and energy of young children and be pure once again.  Have you noticed that WHEN we choose to seek God's great face in our smallness (as our energetic children do) that the pure energy pours out of us too.  It takes physical form in a glowing smile and a shine in the eyes... that if we were not containing it would proably also include a little jumping up and down and running around too.

"I have told you this so that you may be filled with My Joy, yes, your Joy will overflow."
John 15:11

Thanks and Blessings,
JoAnne