Wall Street is on a tear and happy days are here again in many quarters, but not so much for the small to mid-size ministries with which I work. Times remain tough for a lot of nonprofits. If we measure abundance purely in dollars and cents, too many organizations are coming up short.
The good news, however, is that most of the time God’s good gifts don’t come in the form of money or stuff. As I wrote in a chapter for Becoming a Steward Leader: Fundamentally Change the Way You Think, Lead, and Live:
God supplies us with intangible, invaluable gifts such as imagination, patience, an innovative spirit, courage, and wisdom. Living in the confidence of God’s abundance means making the most of what we have been given – of learning to appreciate and maximize the worth of what we hold in our hands. This is a lesson that runs across the whole of Scripture, from God’s question to Moses about his staff, to Gideon and his ragtag army with their horns and torches, to the little boy and his lunch, to weary disciples and their fishing nets. The miracle of God’s abundance is that the resources we need are already within our grasp.
As you gather round the Thanksgiving table, I urge you to pass the abundance, please. Celebrate what God has placed in your hands (and I’m not talking about that turkey drumstick). As the gospel hymn challenges, “Count your blessings. Name them one by one. See what God has done.”
May you feast on God’s amazing goodness, toss out scarcity along with the dinner scraps, and move forward in gratitude, maximizing the resources at your disposal. This is my Thanksgiving prayer for you (and for me).