NaturallyResilient

About

I have been struggling for a number of years with the idea of abundance. This has been a hard lesson to learn and I still have not learned it. Most of my life I have been in conflict with abundance and spirituality. I thought to be spiritual you had to give away all you had and live under a bridge. In striving for spirituality, I could not come to terms with loosing everything.

The thought that God is abundance and all things are His to shower on us as He wills somehow did not include me. In my religious upbringing, it was enforced to me that I was nothing, a worm, worthless and God was everything. If I was a worm to be eaten and sacrificed to a bird then I was just here to be used and God did not really care about my physical life and comfort. But this just did not make sense. Deep down I believed in God’s abundance and His concern for us but my mind would not let me accept that.

I guess I got this idea of sacrifice from Matthew 19:17-24. This is where the rich young man asked what he must do to have eternal life and Jesus replied to keep the commandments but the young man said he had done that and what else should he do. Jesus told him to sell all he had and give the money to the poor and follow him.

This conflict came to a head about 3 years ago when I had a Body Talk session and this issue came up to be dealt with. It was very interesting. I went into the session feeling that God wanted me to give everything away and live under a bridge and came out thinking and feeling I did not have to do that to be spiritual. Referring back to the Matthew passage, Jesus told the young man that if he wanted to be perfect he should sell all he had and give the money to the poor and follow him. That was if he wanted to be “perfect”. I am not perfect and don’t pretend to be. I am not at that point where I can get rid of everything and live only in God’s abundance.

God doesn’t want you to be a burden on others or society. The well known spiritual people that have given up everything to live with those they wanted to help, did so because that was how they could best help others. Some can best serve others by having resources and abundance to share.