Losing a Scarcity Mentality To Discover Abundance
The world has moved into a new sense of scarcity and lack. As the pandemic has taken its toll on jobs and our savings, a feeling of scarcity in our lifestyle and relationships has also set in.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, Caesar shares his own experience of being raised with a scarcity mentality and where the true root of this mindset comes from. He’ll also help you find freedom and show you how to experience an abundance mindset.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- What causes a scarcity mentality and how to escape it.
- How living with a scarcity mindset affects all of life–not just money.
- How the gospel speaks good news and abundance to scarcity.
- Steps to begin to lose a scarcity mentality and find freedom.
From this episode:
“An abundance mentality flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. Remember, you were created in the image of our perfect Father God who loves you! Out of his endless supply and wealth, we can live in the reality that there is plenty and more than enough to share with others. This is true of money and time, of prestige, of recognition, of resources, of decision making.”
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Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Free Download of the Big 3 For Episode #327
Coaching with Caesar and Tina in discipleship and missional living.
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Transcript
I was raised in a family perspective of scarcity.
Speaker:We weren't poor from a resource standpoint, but we were from a perspective standpoint, the prevailing tone was a fear that we weren't living at some higher standard.
Speaker:And the shame that came with that, a presiding perspective of scarcity.
Speaker:And he says, what this helped me recognize was the fact that scarcity in abundance share a common core of fear.
Speaker:See scarcity is the fear that I am not enough and I won't ever be enough.
Speaker:That's really what's under it.
Speaker:That's the root of the whole thing.
Speaker:I will never be enough.
Speaker:I'm not enough.
Speaker:I'll never be enough.
Speaker:And I'm guessing others probably notice that.
Speaker:And even when we perceive abundance of resources, that gets twisted by fear too.
Speaker:It sounds like this in our heads.
Speaker:Well, today I have more than I need.
Speaker:But I could lose it.
Speaker:So I need to hold onto it and, or get more,
Speaker:welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast where you learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
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Speaker:We're going to talk today a little bit about scarcity.
Speaker:Really more about a scarcity mentality as the quarantine and social distancing guidelines have turned now from weeks into months.
Speaker:And now even a lot longer than that, a very real sense of scarcity.
Speaker:Like a new level of it has developed as non-essential businesses were closed down.
Speaker:The loss of income for a lot of people has really, you know, owners and workers has really been affected.
Speaker:And it's really effecting them.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's a lot of sad stuff on the news, right?
Speaker:A new, deeper scarcity mentality has gripped much of the world, but it's not just money and finances that are affected by having a scarcity mentality.
Speaker:This mindset actually shows up in all kinds of areas of our lives.
Speaker:And as we've all now experienced and are still to some degree experiencing this global pandemic with COVID-19, we're experiencing new feelings of scarcity.
Speaker:There's there's like a sense of scarcity in our lifestyles right now.
Speaker:It's not only income or food that a lot of people are lacking or fearing.
Speaker:They might not have enough.
Speaker:We're missing our pre pandemic rhythms of life and our lifestyle.
Speaker:And we wonder if things will ever be the same as they were before.
Speaker:I mean, even as Christians, we're missing out on Sunday gatherings, right?
Speaker:Many of your church buildings, and even if they are back open, uh, you're missing up to 65% of the folks that have chosen not to come back.
Speaker:And we're hoping it's yet, but statistics say maybe not.
Speaker:There's a real sense of relational scarcity too.
Speaker:As we've had to severely adjust who we can meet with and how and how we hang out in restaurants and pubs, maybe they're closed or they've been really changed.
Speaker:And so our relational scarcity is really ramped up high.
Speaker:This word scarcity comes from an old medieval, Latin word denoting sort of a sense of diminishment or being reduced in today's language.
Speaker:I guess it seems to boil down to a question of enoughness that's really scarcity is like, do I have enough?
Speaker:Will I have enough?
Speaker:I also looked up the word abundance and it comes also from a Latin root meaning to move in waves, to flow, sort of like the waves of an ocean.
Speaker:Waves, you know, that never stopped coming, right?
Speaker:Waves never stopped bringing a fresh supply.
Speaker:And I think God and his provision is that way.
Speaker:And we'll talk more about that as we go.
Speaker:All of this is super great, interesting to me because I know I have suffered from a scarcity mentality throughout my own life author, Colton Shannon.
Speaker:I was reading says most of the time, our scarcity mindsets match our childhood.
Speaker:And or adolescent traumatic experiences.
Speaker:So maybe we were taught or modeled there wasn't enough to go around financially.
Speaker:And I can remember as a kid, there was never any extra money.
Speaker:If I, if I wanted a quarter or like to go to the corner store or a dollar maybe to go w there wasn't, we didn't ever had it.
Speaker:And by the end of the month, seriously, we were down to our last quarter waiting for dad's check.
Speaker:Or maybe there never seemed to be enough attention or belonging or trust or hope.
Speaker:In your childhood and check this a tragedy disease or natural disaster, sort of pull back the curtain on the truth that beloved people or things can be taken from us in an instant.
Speaker:We're experiencing this now in profound ways.
Speaker:That was definitely the scarcity mindset that my grandparents and my parents passed on to us.
Speaker:My father was born in 1930 during the great depression.
Speaker:And this sort of scarcity mindset, it was thick and it was ever present a state of fear that hung over our family, like a thin smoke, always perceivable, always being proven regardless of the current available resources.
Speaker:And I can remember when, like years later, obviously my father retired and I've been raised by him and this whole.
Speaker:Great depression mindset.
Speaker:Every scratching penny has to be earned and stashed away and put away.
Speaker:I mean all that, but when my father retired, he had a little bit of money.
Speaker:He had saved up from savings and a small inheritance he had received from his mom and dad cause they had squirreled away every possible penny.
Speaker:Cause you might, you know, might not have any more.
Speaker:And he told me over and over.
Speaker:As he looked to try and manage or invest that little nest egg.
Speaker:He kept saying, I don't care if I make any money on this.
Speaker:I just don't want to lose any.
Speaker:I just don't want to lose any.
Speaker:So even though he needed, he needed income for his retirement, he was more concerned with loss.
Speaker:It was this scarcity mentality.
Speaker:There's this quote by Lynn twist.
Speaker:It says scarcity is like a pair of glasses.
Speaker:We do not know we have on, but they interfere with everything we see.
Speaker:I can relate.
Speaker:I really can I recently read a short but really powerful article by author and counselor, Dave Anthony.
Speaker:And he said, I think about scarcity less as a measure of available resources and more as a mindset or perspective, a way of seeing it is for me, he says more about the lenses we look through rather than just resources available to us to put it in emotional language.
Speaker:I view scarcity as a manifestation of fear and shame.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:This is hitting me, Howard.
Speaker:He goes on to say, I was raised in a family perspective of scarcity.
Speaker:We weren't poor from a resource standpoint, but we were from a perspective standpoint, the prevailing tone was a fear that we weren't living at some higher standard.
Speaker:And the shame that came with that, a presiding perspective of scarcity.
Speaker:And he says, what this helped me recognize was the fact that scarcity and abundance share a common core or a fear seescarcity is the fear that I am not enough and I won't ever be enough.
Speaker:That's really what's under it.
Speaker:That's the root of the whole thing.
Speaker:I will never be enough.
Speaker:I'm not enough.
Speaker:I'll never be enough.
Speaker:And I'm guessing others probably notice that.
Speaker:And, and even when we perceive abundance of resources, That gets twisted by fear too.
Speaker:It sounds like this in our heads.
Speaker:Well, today I have more than I need, but I could lose it.
Speaker:So I need to hold onto it and, or get more.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I can so relate to this.
Speaker:I feel like this guy has been reading my email.
Speaker:A few years back.
Speaker:Um, I was having a nice drink and an expensive smoke at the Carnegie club in Midtown Manhattan with my good buddy and oftentimes mentor Mike Breen.
Speaker:Some of you know of Mike Breen and 3DM resources.
Speaker:And we were talking about this whole scarcity mentality and how it affects not just our view of money and resources, but if it really affects all of life and it affects relationships, I came to see that day for the first time.
Speaker:Kind of like a ton of bricks that my scarcity mindset created a lot of anxiety in relationships with people.
Speaker:For me, see if I perceive someone could either help my career or ministry or hire me or recommend my work.
Speaker:I worried a lot about looking good to them.
Speaker:It wasn't so much, like I had a fear of man, I wasn't trying to make them more glorious than God.
Speaker:But I was living with the fear that their perception of me was important because in my scarcity brain, I tied so many relationships to income or provision.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And when God used Mike to help me move from unbelief to belief in this, I was set free from so much of my own personal scarcity.
Speaker:almost on the spot I had believing the lie that might provision came from People.
Speaker:Who I needed to make sure liked and respected me.
Speaker:And that caused great fear and anxiety.
Speaker:I was not believe in the truth that my father God is my perfect and constant provision.
Speaker:And I don't have to impress him or try to prove myself or earn anything from him.
Speaker:He loves me perfectly and has, and will continue to care for me and my family.
Speaker:And someday my retirement needs, et cetera, whatever.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Freedom.
Speaker:There's freedom in this.
Speaker:And if I'm being honest, it can still creep in it times, but things are really different for me.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:Maybe you can relate to any of that.
Speaker:I don't, that was really new to me.
Speaker:I've never really even talked about this with hardly anyone.
Speaker:Just you now.
Speaker:And now that's a big part of my scarcity mentality, but there are other ways that this affects people business in Community, in relationships, Stephen Covey, he explains it well in his book, the seven habits of highly effective people.
Speaker:He says the scarcity mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life.
Speaker:People with a scarcity mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit.
Speaker:Or power, or he says profit, like resources, even with those who help them gain those things.
Speaker:They also have a hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people, even, and sometimes especially members of their own family or close friends and associates.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:See, you can see how this starts to speak into church life, community, life, our families.
Speaker:He goes on.
Speaker:He says, it's almost if something's being taken from them, when someone else receives special recognition or has a big windfall gain or has remarkable success or achievement.
Speaker:And although they may verbally express happiness for others, success in really they're eating their hearts out.
Speaker:See that's because their sense of worth comes from being compared.
Speaker:And someone else's success to some degree kind of equals their failure to them.
Speaker:That, and that really is like a fear of man, right?
Speaker:Who's really the most glorious in our lives.
Speaker:He goes down, he goes only so many people can be an, a student.
Speaker:Only one person can be the number one in an organization or at the top of the totem pole or in charge.
Speaker:So to win simply means to beat, to beat out the other person.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:It's difficult for people with a scarcity mentality to be members of a complimentary team.
Speaker:He says, they look on differences that people have like differences of opinion or different way of doing things as signs of insubordination and disloyalty.
Speaker:I can remember one time when I worked at a very, very large church, that was exactly the case.
Speaker:You kind of want on the same team, it was kind of like everybody in every department was sort of pitched against each other for the numbers moving up into the right.
Speaker:And if you had different thoughts or opinions than, let's say some of the senior leaders, which though I was one of them, but others that were more senior, um, they really saw it as, almost as insubordination.
Speaker:And I remember too, if anybody ever left.
Speaker:For a career change or like, you know, they were something that was more in line with their gifting or whatever it was seen as disloyalty.
Speaker:It was like, Oh, how could you ever, how could you leave us?
Speaker:Why are you, you know, that, see that all flows actually out of a scarcity mentality.
Speaker:Now COvey goes on, he says the abundance mentality on the other hand flows out of a deep, inner sense of personal worth and security.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:under line that, listen to that.
Speaker:Abundance mentality flows out of a deep sense, a deep inner sense of personal worth and security.
Speaker:It's the paradigm that there's plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody.
Speaker:It results in sharing of prestige of recognition of profits sharing, and decision-making, it opens up possibilities.
Speaker:He says an options and alternatives for creativity.
Speaker:Can you see how this speaks in the leadership and community in our churches?
Speaker:Now, this is when I hear like this abundance mentality.
Speaker:I go, wow, that's what I want.
Speaker:And that's how our family generally operates.
Speaker:But I wonder how much of my scarcity mentality has come into my parenting or my leadership been churches.
Speaker:And in Community, he goes on, he says the abundance mentality takes personal joy, satisfaction and fulfillment, and it turns it outward.
Speaker:Appreciating the uniqueness of others, it recognizes it being abundance mentality.
Speaker:It recognizes the unlimited possibilities for positive growth and development, creating a new third alternative calls it a new third alternative.
Speaker:And that really caught my eye too.
Speaker:To me.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Really interesting.
Speaker:That third alternative or a third way of thinking.
Speaker:That article that I was quoting earlier by Dane, Anthony says something so similar and powerful.
Speaker:He says in time he has gratefully come to know a third way.
Speaker:He's saying not scarcity or abundance, but this third way he calls sufficiency.
Speaker:The core of sufficiency is the recognition that we are enough.
Speaker:And he quote St.
Speaker:Francis here as saying, I am who I am in the eyes of God.
Speaker:Nothing more, nothing less.
Speaker:And he says, this has become for me a mantra of sufficiency.
Speaker:And I would say abundance too.
Speaker:That's that's where our abundance flows from believing who God says we are.
Speaker:He says, I experienced that as an invitation to humility and acceptance of who I am and an affirmation of the core of my being.
Speaker:My identity that flows from God himself.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker:And this perspective feels really different, wholly different.
Speaker:What he calls an expansive state.
Speaker:It's open.
Speaker:It's curious, it's vibrant, grateful.
Speaker:He goes on in this expansive state.
Speaker:We can feel the freedom of sharing inner and outer resources without the deep fear that we'll be permanently diminished or depleted.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Oh, he says it's an intentional choosing of the ways in which we see and think about our life, our gifts and desires.
Speaker:So what is the ultimate thing behind the thing with this scarcity mentality?
Speaker:We're realizing it comes from fear and not having as deep sense of self-worth.
Speaker:Is there more, is there more behind there?
Speaker:It does come from fear and there is freedom in believing the truth.
Speaker:And as is always the case in believing the truth about God, let me remind you of one of the four GS that we've talked about a lot on the podcast.
Speaker:God is great.
Speaker:So I don't have to be in control.
Speaker:Well, that's good news for those living with a scarcity mentality.
Speaker:How do I, how am I going to get enough with fill in the blank?
Speaker:Not just money, but everything.
Speaker:God is great.
Speaker:So I don't have to be in control like waves on an ocean.
Speaker:His grace and provision never stops coming.
Speaker:It is new and fresh wave after wave.
Speaker:He controls all things and owns all things and he knows our needs before we do.
Speaker:And if you ever start to doubt his great care and provision for you, look to the cross, look to the cross of Christ.
Speaker:God provided his best, his perfect son, Jesus, to meet our greatest need.
Speaker:There was no scarcity in that provision.
Speaker:Only abundance and abundance of provision and grace, we, I truly believe that God is great, so we don't have to be in control.
Speaker:And because of his grace, we don't have to earn anything.
Speaker:Our hearts and our minds start to shift.
Speaker:They start to shift from scarcity to abundance or sufficiency in him.
Speaker:Let's do a little comparing here, see a scarcity mentality, says, Oh, look at all our debt and look at our deficits and look at our bills.
Speaker:But abundance says, we'll look at all that we do have and all that we can do.
Speaker:That's what our focus becomes.
Speaker:A scarcity mentality says we focus on just getting by in the present.
Speaker:You know, we're just, we're paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker:We're just getting by and that's our focus.
Speaker:We're abundance.
Speaker:We joyfully look toward the future and to our God who is a great provider.
Speaker:In scarcity, we compete for available resources, sort of that zero sum games or a mind set, but abundance in our heart speaks to there's more than enough for everyone because God owns it all.
Speaker:He owns the cattle on a thousand Hills, right?
Speaker:As scripture says, scarcity mentality gives us feelings of stress and anxiety.
Speaker:But with abundance, we have an inner sense of worth and security.
Speaker:Well, we have sense of worth because it flows right out.
Speaker:Our image bearing who God is, who he's created us to be.
Speaker:What's now true of us was scarcity mentality.
Speaker:We feel like I need to make sure I look good if I'm to succeed.
Speaker:But abundance mindset says if I succeed and you succeed, we all succeed and there'll be more for others.
Speaker:We can bless others through our success through God flowing that through our lives.
Speaker:Here's another, here's another thought of difference between scarcity and abundance.
Speaker:Scarcity makes us reluctant to contribute and share information with others and resources and our time.
Speaker:But abundance opens us up to collaborating and sharing what we have and what others need to get ahead and see their needs met and grow and prosper.
Speaker:Scarcity makes me think of, I have all the answers were abundance shows me.
Speaker:That I can be willing to learn from others that others have things that I might need.
Speaker:That might be how God is routing that into our lives.
Speaker:See, it's an openness, right?
Speaker:It is the third way.
Speaker:Scarcity promotes only self and do to be accomplishments.
Speaker:I got to get ahead.
Speaker:If I do this, then I'll be that.
Speaker:Then we'll have that.
Speaker:And then if I have more, I can lock down the future.
Speaker:See, I it's bought me being control, but abundance, others and their achievements too.
Speaker:You see, see the difference here in how these things feel.
Speaker:I want to go through some of those because you can kind of get a visceral sense and not every one of those trips, my heart trigger, but some of them do.
Speaker:And maybe some of them also tap on your own heart.
Speaker:If you feel like you have any areas of living with a scarcity mentality, here's a few practical things we can begin doing to lose the scarcity mentality and shift to a mindset of abundance.
Speaker:First count your blessings.
Speaker:I know that's old school, but literally take out paper, sit down, make a list of all of the things you do have in your life.
Speaker:Think about it.
Speaker:Think about all that we all come into the world naked.
Speaker:We have nothing.
Speaker:Zero.
Speaker:Think about all the things you have in your home, in your life.
Speaker:Education, relationships, knowledge, wisdom.
Speaker:There's so much that we do have count your blessings.
Speaker:And that kind of goes hand in hand with number two, developing a habit of gratitude.
Speaker:Well, we count our blessings.
Speaker:I'm saying literally count them, but what about having developing a habit of gratitude in our family and in our coaching cohorts with the people we coach.
Speaker:So I know some of you are hearing this.
Speaker:We always rehearse the evidence of grace and goodness in our lives.
Speaker:Start to practice that, develop that as a habit.
Speaker:What do I mean by that?
Speaker:Rehearsing?
Speaker:The evidence of grace is speaking it out loud.
Speaker:Hey, you know what, God's doing this in our life right now.
Speaker:This is amazing.
Speaker:Or, you know, in our discipleship, this is going on.
Speaker:That is God's unmerited favor, or look at this provision or this raise at work, or, you know, we heard back from the doctor and.
Speaker:It's it's going to be okay.
Speaker:Or maybe it's not, but God's providing so we can w praise God, we have health care.
Speaker:We're rehearsing the evidences of his grace and goodness in our life causes to live with hope and expectancy, but it puts that hope and expectancy squarely back in God's hands.
Speaker:Really important to help us move from a scarcity mentality and start to shift to a mindset of abundance.
Speaker:Here's number three, stop hanging out with negative people who complain a lot and live with and promote a scarcity mentality.
Speaker:You know who they are.
Speaker:They complain a lot.
Speaker:They they're always lacking.
Speaker:They're always bummed.
Speaker:It's always someone else's fault.
Speaker:They don't live very generously or any of that.
Speaker:You can see them.
Speaker:They're stingy tippers.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Surround yourself with people that have an abundance mentality that live generously.
Speaker:That look to see others succeed that are open to new ideas, right?
Speaker:They're not just stuck in the past or doing ways things, the ways we've always done them.
Speaker:That's what we want to hang out with.
Speaker:If you're hanging out with people that are just negative and have a scarcity mentality that will only feed yours, here's another one.
Speaker:Number four, avoid activities that trigger a feeling of scarcity.
Speaker:So if scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest photos of stunning vacations and rock hard toned bodies or delicious home cooked meals, if any of that provokes feelings of inadequacy or lack, we'll stay away from that, maybe get off that platform or change your feed, you know, curate who you're following with more encouraging.
Speaker:Accounts and People.
Speaker:How about that?
Speaker:Don't trigger this constant thing.
Speaker:Think about marketing at its core is to show a lack to us that we have to fulfill it's to show us that we have scarcity in this area of our life.
Speaker:I'm not enough.
Speaker:You're not enough.
Speaker:You're not this enough.
Speaker:You're not that enough.
Speaker:You don't have enough of this.
Speaker:You want more of that lose that.
Speaker:Like don't, don't participate in that.
Speaker:Get rid of that.
Speaker:If that's what it takes.
Speaker:I can remember years ago, uh, there was something God was working out of my heart.
Speaker:Wasn't this scarcity mentality.
Speaker:Well, I'll tell you what it was.
Speaker:It was like just kind of a, sort of a critical spirit.
Speaker:Like I was just too critical about everything.
Speaker:And God said, well, you watch this show in that show and that's all about just them picking each other apart and being really critical.
Speaker:And now it's funny, but it's only feeding that.
Speaker:And so I'm going to ask you not to watch that.
Speaker:And so I didn't watch that show for years and years and years.
Speaker:And, you know, what it helped it did.
Speaker:It changed things.
Speaker:Now I've been since been able to watch it here and there, but I still kind of see it that way.
Speaker:So I, and I don't really just Gorge on it now.
Speaker:Here's number five.
Speaker:And this is really the biggest, one of all, kind of already talked a little about this meditate on the reality that God is great.
Speaker:So we don't have to be in control.
Speaker:Think think deeply about the reality, the truth that God is the most glorious one in the universe and he loves you completely.
Speaker:So you don't have to fear what other less glorious people well think of you believe that God is good.
Speaker:So you don't have to look elsewhere for needs and satisfaction.
Speaker:And, and God is gracious.
Speaker:So we never have to beg or try and prove ourselves to him or others in order to receive the things we need in life.
Speaker:Meditate on those.
Speaker:You probably recognize those as the four GS.
Speaker:You can find whole episodes we've done of the Podcast, just going deep into those four GS.
Speaker:And I did a whole advent series back in December on the four GS, but you see how it speaks into this idea of trying to move from a scarcity mentality, to a mindset of abundance, who God is speaks directly to who we believe ourselves to be and where we find our worth.
Speaker:And that's, that's where all this whole scarcity mentality.
Speaker:That's where the root of it is.
Speaker:And also where the fix is, where the hope and the change and the release and the freedom is found.
Speaker:I've heard, it said that abundance is not something we acquire.
Speaker:It's something we tune into.
Speaker:That's so good.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Our God is a great and abundant and generous father and he owns it all.
Speaker:And it's there.
Speaker:Even if we haven't seen it yet.
Speaker:Abundance.
Speaker:Isn't something we have to acquire.
Speaker:We just have to tune into it.
Speaker:Maybe that's called faith.
Speaker:I want to live out of an abundance mentality.
Speaker:I want to live generously with others in light of God's generosity and provision.
Speaker:And that's how I want to live.
Speaker:I want that to be my heart and my perspective, the glasses I wear.
Speaker:I want to live as a conduit of his endless grace.
Speaker:I don't want to live like a barrel.
Speaker:You know what I mean by this?
Speaker:A conduit is like a pipe.
Speaker:It's something that water or electricity or any other supply is routed through from one place to another.
Speaker:A barrel is for storing up resources for holding onto them for later use God is looking for conduits of his grace and generosity.
Speaker:He's not looking for barrels to store these things in.
Speaker:So coveting our things and acting as if we're our own source of provision for income or supply money time.
Speaker:And so on.
Speaker:All that shows that our hearts are not at a Peace.
Speaker:We live, we're still living with fear.
Speaker:We're not ultimately trusting God for these things.
Speaker:We hang on to our stuff, or we constantly focus on what we don't have because we believe everything's in short supply, which do you most often represent a conduit?
Speaker:Or a barrel.
Speaker:Whenever my wife, Tina I've prayed about giving a certain amount of money to someone or trying to meet some need.
Speaker:We've either usually ended up with the exact same number comes to mind, or Tina has come up with a number much bigger than mine, but she has never once thought about giving less.
Speaker:Then I was prepared to give in a situation.
Speaker:Her heart of generosity and abundance has helped remind me over and over again that she sees God is a great and generous God able to refill the barrel if we will, but trust him and pour it out for others.
Speaker:So go ahead and tip over that barrel.
Speaker:There's more where that came from.
Speaker:I hope that's helpful.
Speaker:I hope you'll think deeply about some of these things.
Speaker:There is freedom in this now, as always, I want to give you three big takeaways from today's talk from, from our topic today.
Speaker:You don't want to miss these, if nothing else, and you can get this as a printable PDF.
Speaker:If you want these three for like talking points or to share with others, you can get this as a printable PDF.
Speaker:Just by going to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three B I G the number three and boom.
Speaker:Then you can download it.
Speaker:Here are the big three for this week.
Speaker:First, a scarcity mentality comes from fear, not from our current level of resources.
Speaker:Scarcity is the fear that I'm not enough.
Speaker:I won't ever be enough.
Speaker:And even when we perceive abundance in our resources, That starts to get twisted by fear too.
Speaker:We think I have more than I need, but I might lose it.
Speaker:So I need to hold onto it or get more all of this flows from not believing the truth that my father God is our perfect and constant provision and how I have to impress him or try to prove myself, earn anything from him.
Speaker:He loves me.
Speaker:He loves you.
Speaker:That's where that that's, that's the core of all of this scarcity mentality and move into abundance.
Speaker:Number two.
Speaker:An abundance mentality flows out of a deep, inner sense of personal worth and security.
Speaker:Remember, you were created in the image of our perfect father.
Speaker:God, who loves you.
Speaker:And it's out of his endless supply and wealth that we can live in the reality that there's plenty and there's more than enough to share with others.
Speaker:This is true of money and time of prestige, of recognition of resources of decision-making.
Speaker:God is great.
Speaker:So you don't have to control those things.
Speaker:Let this truth open possibilities, creativity and freedom in your life.
Speaker:And number three, to strengthen your abundance mindset, go back, listen to those five sort of practices you might want to start doing or stop doing.
Speaker:And grab a pen and paper and ask yourself these questions.
Speaker:What areas in my life do I allow scarcity mentality thinking to dominate?
Speaker:How can I shift those thoughts to an abundance mindset?
Speaker:Where in my life am I already abundant?
Speaker:And where is God wanting to bring more abundance into my life?
Speaker:Will you let him.
Speaker:Like I said, go ahead, tip over that barrel.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:God's just waiting to bless us.
Speaker:And I think because of his great love and his great provision and his great generosity, I bet it just breaks his heart.
Speaker:When we live with a scarcity mentality.
Speaker:I know just the preparation for this episode and think through this deeply and even sharing some stuff that I've never really talked to with others too much about.
Speaker:It's really releasing me in new ways and fresh ways and reminding me of things that maybe I learned and tend to forget.
Speaker:Okay, well, that's it for today.
Speaker:I really love being with you.
Speaker:And I hope this has been helpful.
Speaker:Please share this with someone else that you love and care about.
Speaker:Share this with the people in your community, because remember we're, we're looking to have relational peace with others.
Speaker:That's what Jesus wants for us and freedoms.
Speaker:Now, join me next week.
Speaker:I'll be talking about whether or not your Missional Community should be neighborhood based or more network based.
Speaker:Meaning should you build Missional Community when everybody lives real close around you?
Speaker:Or is it okay to have one that's network and it's different people in your life, but maybe they don't live very close in there if they're spread out some more and that'll be an interesting discussion.
Speaker:You won't want to miss it.
Speaker:I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit Everyday Disciple dot com.