Today’s Word: ABUNDANCE

This week we welcome guest blogger, Pastor Paul Gauche. Pastor Paul is filling in while Pastor Jeff is on vacation. These posts are part of Pastor Paul’s #100days50works project, where be blogs about a different word each day. You can follow his project on Instagram (@pgauche), or on his blog, Thriving Rhythms.

Today’s Word: ‘ABUNDANCE’ as in… we have enough, more than enough, an abundance of enough. We thrive as generous people by seeking lavish interactions with the world  so that the abundance of the few can transform the scarcity of the many into a feast of blessing where all have enough.

On August 5, 2010, a cave-in at a 121-year-old copper mine in San José, Chile, sparked an international rescue effort to free 33 trapped miners. They were 2,230 feet underground. (Warning: If you even have a hint of claustrophobia you may want to stop reading right here.) If you followed the story you know that they were eventually rescued after 69 days and all of them lived to tell their remarkable stories. What you may not remember in the wake of such a dramatic story was that their only connection to the surface for most of the time was through a series of boreholes through which everything they needed to survive was passed. We learned that everything—food, water, vitamins, clothing, sleeping cots and blankets, electronics, and other necessities—had to fit in canisters no bigger than 3.19 inches in diameter. Where’s MacGyver when you need him?

Think of the utter abundance of the moment when the miners first began receiving provisions from the world above them. If you cup your hands in front of you and stare into your palms, that would be about 3.19 inches wide—give or take. Ask yourself: “What if only what was essential for survival had to fit right there in the palm of my hands?” It’s not a lot. But for some, it’s just enough.

Now ask yourself this: what if everything someone else needed to survive could fit right there in the palm of your hands and then placed into the palms of their hands? That suddenly seems rather doable, doesn’t it? Consider how the needs of so many others could be met with what we can hold in the palm of our hands. Consider all of the things that pass through our hands every day that might be life-saving for someone else. 3.19 inches wide. If you think about it, that’s a lot more than you think.

#100days50words