When What We Have Feels Smaller

There never seems to be enough.

For me, one of the biggest examples is time. I have joked more than once that what I really need is a time machine so I can double the number of hours in a day. There is always something else that needs doing, someone I need to call, something I meant to finish yesterday.

Sometimes it feels as though life is an ongoing exercise in figuring out how to make too little stretch far enough. We can feel that way about many things. There is not enough time. Not enough energy. Not enough money. Not enough patience. Not enough help. 

Scarcity can be very real. But sometimes scarcity is also about how we see what we have, our perception. 

Jesus tells a strange story about that in Matthew’s Gospel. A landowner hires workers throughout the day. Some work from morning until evening. Others are hired much later. At the end of the day, those who worked the longest receive the wage they had agreed upon. 

Everything is fine until they discover what the others received.

Suddenly, what had been acceptable is no longer enough, even though nothing has been taken away from them. 

Their agreement has not been broken. What changes is their awareness of what somebody else has received.

Comparison has a remarkable ability to change our understanding of what we have.

We do this with much more than money.  Someone else receives recognition while our work goes unnoticed. Someone else’s life seems easier, happier, or more secure.

We start comparing, and what we have begins to feel smaller.

The psalm for Sunday invites us to look in another direction. The psalmist looks toward God and sees one who is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and filled with steadfast love. The starting point is not what someone else has received. The starting point is the goodness of God.

That matters when we begin thinking about generosity. Many billionaires seem to think that sharing is a game for someone else, and while that's wrong, generosity rooted primarily in obligation can eventually become a burden. Even something begun with the best intentions can turn into resentment when our primary thought becomes, “I have to do this.”

Grace begins somewhere else.

Grace begins by recognizing what we have already received. We have received God’s love without earning it. We have received gifts and abilities that can be used in different ways. We have received people who have walked alongside us. We have received opportunities to love, serve, create, listen, encourage, forgive, and begin again.

None of that means pretending scarcity is not real. Sometimes there truly is not enough time, money, energy, or help. Faith does not require us to deny reality.

But grace can change how we live within that reality.

When we begin with what we have received rather than what we lack, generosity becomes less about obligation and more about response. It becomes less about what we are supposed to give and more about what God’s grace might make possible through us.

Maybe that is where generosity begins.

Not with the question, “Do I have enough?”

But with another question:

“What has God placed in my life that I can share?”

Kevin+