Enough of Everything

What is the thing in your life that you most wish you had more of? In what part of your life do you most feel pinched? Has that thing that has you feeling pinched changed during your life? What do you imagine you will wish you had more of in ten or twenty years? And what can that teach you about your spiritual life?

These days, I feel most acutely the desire for more time. Specifically, I want more time to do the stuff I feel like I need to do—check and send emails, prepare for Bible studies, make hospital visits, and write newsletter articles. To some extent, though to a lesser degree, that yearning extends to the necessary things in my personal life like household chores and grocery shopping. Although I shudder to think what it says about my work-life balance, I do not feel a significant pinch in my need for time off, time with my family, or time for leisure and renewal. It is my craving for more work-related time that nags at me.

What if I looked for ways to reset my thinking until I learn that the amount of work I am supposed to do will always fit the time I have been given to do it? What if I found and pursued spiritual practices that teach me not to try to stretch the time that I have so far and so thin in an attempt to cover all of the work I feel like I am supposed to do? What if I listened to Jesus, who tells me to stop worrying about having enough and to strive first for the kingdom of God, trusting that God will give me everything I need (Matt. 6:25-34)? 

I believe that God has given us and will give us everything we need, but how do I make that belief real and operative in my life? Maintaining a theology of abundance within a culture of scarcity is a radical act of faith. It requires a real commitment to faithful vulnerability that runs counter to everything our instincts demand. It requires practice.

I recognize, however, that the belief that God will give us what we need also risks being born of privilege and comfort. As one who does not need to work two jobs to put food on the table, saying that there will always be enough is a lot easier for me than for many others. And the last thing I want to do is to promote a false belief in faith-based prosperity.

God gives us everything we need, but God does not give faithful people more than those who lack faith. In fact, if anything, faithful people are called to have less and to share whatever they have with the poor. In part, a theology of abundance requires a radical commitment to a community-based understanding of material possession. God has given us—together, all of us—everything that we—together, all of us—need, but making sure that each one of us has enough will require a radical redistribution of wealth, which the Bible portrays as the natural consequence of faith (see, for example, Acts 4:32-37).  

I am encouraged not only by the stories of scripture—the words of Jesus, the teaching of Paul, and the example of the apostles—but also by my own experience. Time has not always been the thing that feels most precious to me. Years ago, money was the thing I worried about the most. As some of you have heard me say during the annual giving stewardship campaign, my anxiety about having enough money did not go away because I started earning more. In fact, it went away when I learned to claim less of it for myself and my family.

I began taking stewardship seriously when I was in seminary. My sending parish surprised me with a very generous gift that wiped away my seminary debt, and my response was to commit to giving the first ten percent of my income back to that church. During the next few years, I maintained that discipline, and it taught me the importance of faithful stewardship, but I needed more time and practice to learn the spiritual depths that come from it.

As a curate, I heard my boss and lay leaders in the church where I worked invite the parish to consider growing in their giving. At the same time, with the birth of our first child and the increased expenses and reduction in income that came with it, I heard my inner voice saying that I was already giving enough—more than enough. I felt the need to cut back on what I was sharing with God and the church in order to have enough for myself and my family, but, when I did that, a new sort of anxiety gnawed at my soul. I was worried about everything financial—not only our charitable giving but paying the bills and saving for retirement and hurrying Elizabeth back to work so everything would get better. The stress was unbearable—a haunting scarcity that made life hard.

After discussing it with Elizabeth, we restored our commitment to the church to the level it had been before Frances was born. Do not misunderstand me: God did not respond by giving us a financial windfall or easing the burdens that come with starting a family. We had less than what we started with, but, even with less, we learned to trust that there was already enough and always would be. We had less money to spend on ourselves, but we stopped worrying about how we would make it. Intentional stewardship had required more careful budgeting, and that helped us see that we had enough all along.

I think my recent awareness that time feels especially precious is an invitation to reengage the stewardship of time and look for ways to remember that God has given me enough. Simply thinking that or saying the words like a mantra will not get the job done. I need practices that instill that belief within me by recentering myself in the abundance of God.

One of my favorite disciplines is saying Morning Prayer every day. Starting each day not by looking at unread emails or preparing a sermon outline but by reading scripture and saying my prayers reminds me that time is a gift to be used for God’s glory and that by giving my time back to God I discover that there is already enough. Lately, I have been pretty good about saying the office every morning, but I want to grow in that commitment and expand to daily Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline. In effect, by the time I get into the throws of the workday, I forget that the entire day has been set aside for God, and I need the rhythm of the other offices to recenter me in that truth.

Silence is another practice that I enjoy but not enough to make a difference in my life. Is there anything more counter-productive in the worldly sense but fruitful and life-giving in the divine sense than maintaining a discipline of silence? If I commit to fifteen minutes of silence every day, won’t that change the way I experience the noise and busyness of the rest of the day? Won’t daily silence teach me to listen for God even when my schedule is most full?

The fact that I do not feel the same scarcity with time off suggests that I may be doing a good job disconnecting from work, but I wonder if renewed intention about spending time with my family and caring for myself might rebalance how I feel about time on the clock. Instead of simply unplugging from work, might intentionally plugging into non-work activities and relationships help me remember that there will always be enough time to do whatever God has called me to do? Could giving up more of what God has given me by sharing it with others help me remember that I have already been given enough of what I seek?

Again, what parts of your life feel the most pinched? What do you crave more of? How might that yearning shift if you stopped trying to get more out of what you have and looked for spiritual practices that remind you that you have already been given enough—even of the thing you crave the most? Perhaps sharing more of the very thing that you want more of is what it takes for you to trust that you do not need any more than you have. That sounds a little like a spiritual riddle, and I think stewardship often feels like that. But I found that the benefits from that practice are immeasurable.

Yours faithfully,

Evan D. Garner