Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, June 18, 2023
by Madison Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Abundance in a life of faith isn’t just about the counterintuitive…it’s about the ordinary.
A lot of us are used to hearing about an “abundance mindset” in direct contrast with a “scarcity mindset.” This is a helpful comparison in that it reminds us to think in terms of gratitude instead of fear—to preempt things, people, and situations instead of reacting to them and to maintain a vision of thriving instead of rationing. Living abundantly is a little like playing offense instead of defense. Like going after what you want—or maybe even what you know God wants for you—instead of worrying about what might get in the way of all of that.
In a way, then, an abundance mindset is a bit counterintuitive for most of us. We are conditioned socially, politically, and economically to plan and prepare for the worst. We are encouraged to compete with other people on every front and to measure our goodness—our worthiness—using achievements. We tend to equate our senses of self-worth with productivity. We are told that you can never have too much, which means you can never truly have enough, either. It's clear in this passage that God calls us to shirk these kinds of teachings. Blatantly. Dramatically. Fully. An abundant life of faith is a life that goes against the grain of self-sufficiency and scarcity.
But what’s even more clear—and infinitely more interesting—is that God calls us to ground ourselves in the most basic, foundational, ordinary things we could possibly imagine. Water. Bread. Sprouting seeds. According to the Prophet Isaiah, the path to everlasting covenants and steadfast love is paved with small-scale, mundane, base-level things like what you use to nourish your body and what you see coming out of the dirt.
Really, “mindset” isn’t a term that does true abundance much justice. Because what this text tells us is that abundance is more than a mindset. It’s more than a reframe. It’s more than a series of tricks to help us avoid the pitfalls of scarcity thinking. Abundance is about a creation-wide transformation that centers and appreciates the magic in everyday things. A transformation of everything from our hearts to the trees. Abundance is about internalizing the uniquely powerful grace of God and letting it lead us—letting it inspire everything we think and everything we do, starting with the basics.
