Time, Money, and an Abundant God
Issue 018
JUNE 12, 2018
WRITTEN BY DR. SHARON SPANO
Sharon Spano helps C-Suite Executives and Entrepreneurs transform how they think, adapt, and respond in complex business environments. As a Corporate Business Strategist, Certified Professional Integral Coach, speaker, and author, she can help you realign your business strategy with a culture of performance that supports you in living your biggest life. For further information, go to www.SharonSpano.com.
The movement is real, and it’s happening now!
What an exciting opportunity to be a part of what God is doing in the church.
Slingshot rose up in response to this movement and, as an incubator for change, stands to: empower people to form grassroots communities of faith and love.
In our ever-changing society of complex ecosystems, could there be a grander call to action?
Such a call, while profoundly simple, however, is not easy. What is required is a paradigm shift—one that challenges each of us to re-examine all that we know about the institutional church and what it means to follow Jesus.
Bearing this in mind, let’s consider a significant question, one worthy of thoughtful prayer:
What will it take for us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, to reinvent our perspectives on both time and money in the context of an abundant God?
Such a question points to our innate tendency to slide into perspectives of fear and scarcity. Perspectives that, according to Scripture, are rarely associated with an abundant God who loves us beyond all measure.
REINVENTING OUR PERSPECTIVE ON TIME
If you’ve ever been affiliated with a formalized church, whether big or small, you probably would agree that time is “not to be wasted.”
While we believe that time is eternal, we behave as those it is finite—-as if God needed us to work as fast as we can because He cannot build the Kingdom without our harried efforts.
What this typically equates to is a body of believers who tirelessly work on behalf of the Kingdom. It’s a beautiful thing to watch believers come together in service to one another and the community-at-large. I’m not suggesting that Christians everywhere abandon their heart for God and service.
What I am suggesting is that somewhere along the road to Kingdom building, we lose our way. We get caught up in the busyness of doing good works, and, in doing so, we can easily neglect the Kingdom itself: our family, friends, and even our own health and wellbeing.
In our busyness, God becomes a task-to be-completed rather than a relationship of desire.
The renowned Oswald Chambers reminds us: “Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him.”
In fact, Scripture does not actually tell us to get busy with “Kingdom building.” Rather, we are to seek the Kingdom, and as Jesus reminded, to set our eyes on Him first and foremost.
This means that we are called to live out a new way of being in the world. One that emulates His way of unconditional love.
In order to fully embody this way of being, silence and contemplative prayer is required. This way demands time alone with Jesus.
When the work itself becomes our God, we risk becoming overburdened. We risk burnout. We risk ignoring or perhaps even hurting the ones we love most. More importantly, we risk losing sight of the one we claim to seek.
Psalm 46:10: Be still, and know that I am God.
If we are to reinvent our perspective on time in this movement, we must honor this directive. There is no other option.
Even Jesus rested; he was intentional about taking time for fasting, prayer, and reflection. Time to be alone with the Father. Time to restore so that he could begin again.
A new perspective on time suggests that we live each moment of eternity now. That we reconsider how our time is utilized.
Any movement toward Jesus, then, requires that we, too, emulate his capacity for silence, rest, and oneness with the Father.
What is the focus of your daily spiritual practice? Your daily efforts? Is it Jesus or is it the manifestation of good works?
“... We are called to live out a new way of being in the world. One that emulates His way of unconditional love.”
REINVENTING OUR PERSPECTIVE ON MONEY
The second way that scarcity shows up in the Christian community has to do with the faulty premise that you have to be poor to be fully committed to ministry.
As we re-think the institutional church, there is an opportunity to recognize the value of bi-vocational efforts that allow leaders to engage in ministry work even as they earn and thrive financially.
Sustainability of any movement requires that key stakeholders themselves are able to sustain their own households—not for the sake of survival or egocentric desire—but so that they can freely contribute in far greater ways.
A new way of being with money requires that we honor our God-given strengths and talents to increase our capacity for generosity and stewardship. When we grow in financial stability, so does the world thrive and prosper around us.
Luke 12:48: From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
For those of us who are able, is it not our responsibility to earn so that we can contribute more on behalf of those who cannot?
In fact, Scripture references our potential challenges with money over 2,350 times, so it’s clear that God knew money could easily serve as a great distraction. Yet, the path is clearly defined: we are to earn it, grow it, utilize it wisely— all to His glory.
Matthew 25:29: For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.
A new perspective on money requires that we heal and abandon any and all thoughts and behaviors associated with scarcity.
What do you believe about money? How can you better utilize your God-given strengths and talents so as to increase your capacity to earn and give generously? What is required of you to be a better steward of all your resources?
THE PATH FORWARD
The movement toward Jesus is not out there. It begins with every thought, word, and action that lives within us.
If we are to successfully form sustainable grassroots communities of faith and love, we must stand together in response to the hard questions of the day, and these questions cannot be answered without time and money in the equation.
As two of our most vital resources, time and money have the potential to hold us hostage, to undermine all our efforts if we allow them to catapult us into thoughts and behaviors of scarcity.
In rethinking existing paradigms that no longer serve our ever-changing society, we have an opportunity to recognize that time and money are part of every ecosystem.
When we give these two resources there proper place in the system, we are far better positioned to steward them wisely for the greater glory of God.