Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Let's hang on to what we've got

Saturday, February 17, 2018

From Isaiah 58
If you bestow your bread on the hungry ... then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even from the parched land. He will renew your strength and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails.

In Illinois' East Lincoln Township, where I was born and grew up, where my mother and brother still live, the corn crop overflows the concrete bins almost every year. A vast three-football-field-sized semi-circle, eight feet high, holds the overflow. The corn rolls and flows out of the local fields. And there is joy in Mudville.

Once I read a closely argued novel about a gorilla bestowing wisdom on men. In the fiction the gorilla could speak, and he talked of the days of hunting and gathering, before we farmers began to claim and store up crops for the winter. Before this change, everyone had enough. No one went hungry. In the most important ways, we all shared the bounty of the land.

We were given the gift of seeds and learned how to save back - insurance in case of famine, food for the winter. Joseph in biblical Egypt saved back, and saved his people when the famine came. Then, when the people were hopelessly lost for forty years in the Sinai desert, God sent them both meat and bread called manna. Water came from solid rocks. They received enough each day and behold, it was good. But when they began to save it back it turned to rot and smelled putrid and was ruined. The people muttered and complained. They spent several more decades in the desert.

In spite of this demonstration of plenty from God, Mosaic law chose the way of Joseph. It expected the people to farm and store their crop. That law did make provision for both rich and poor. Farmers were expected to leave some of their crop in the fields for others to glean. Slavery seemed to be an accepted norm, but slaves were freed after seven years. And most importantly, after 49 years came the year of Jubilee when all indebtedness was forgiven.

Both in the desert and in the cities, God encouraged his people to believe, "We have enough. There is plenty for all." But our selfishness made that difficult and then more difficult, and now it seems impossible. What have we done!

How has the economy of scarcity ravaged us? David Brooks finds a metaphor: "The scarcity mind-set is an acid that destroys every belief system it touches ... the scarcity mentality and perpetual warrior style it demands are incompatible with any civilized political creed ... the scarcity mentality always ends up eating the host philosophy because it operates on a more fundamental level of the psyche."

When I fail or forget to acknowledge my "shadow," I lose my way even in the light. There is sin in my soul, and fear, and because of my fear I strive to protect what I have rather than offer it up and give it away. I easily become consumed by my frightened mental commentaries on the future, about which I know so little, and lose the moment.

This is less of an option than I would like it to be.

God says he will hold us, cover us, surround us. All of us. On this third day of Lent we can choose to believe him and accept his simple covenant: "Bestow YOUR bread upon the hungry." And God promises to guide us always and fill our plates with plenty. This what God saves up for us.

But we are determined to do this our way. We have not yet finished our love affair with the "knowledge of good and evil." The apple still seems ripe. And so ... we take a bite.

O Lord, we are broken by our part-time wisdom! Replace my will with your will. Lead us beside still waters. You fill our table with your feast, and we only need to sit down with our enemy to discover how we are all your children and there is more than enough for us all.

Devotions Archive

Let's hang on to what we've got

Saturday, February 17, 2018