A single golf ball

Abundance is defined as “an extremely plentiful or over-sufficient quantity or supply”

Take for example golf balls. Just right now we have an extremely plentiful and over-sufficient quantity of them in our house, in a broken brown leather hold-all just beside the backdoor.

A friend of ours works at the city’s recycling centre. My husband mentioned to him in passing that he was on the look-out for a set of golf clubs. Last year sometime, he and a friend at work knocked a few golf balls into a few holes – not a proper round by any means, just a few holes. I don’t think the words “natural talent” came into their conversations, but they enjoyed themselves.

On our next visit to the recycling centre, with the flair of a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat, our friend showed Joe three sets of golf clubs. He chose one set and spent the afternoon, splashing around in the kitchen sink, washing and polishing each club. Only the putter was missing.

Another message to our friend and he turned up in the doorstep with half a dozen putters, the leather hold-all bursting with golf balls and a carrier bag full of multi-coloured tees.

Imagine if Tiger Woods had just the one single golf ball to play his tournament with. Just one little white ball with its two hundred to three hundred little dimples on it. Imagine if his wife told him that if he lost that one ball, his life as a golfer would be over. How would that affect the way he played the game? Would he play any risky shots?

My husband could play a different ball for every hole on the golf course, week in, week out, for the next few years and still have golf balls to spare. He doesn’t need to play safe because he has an abundance of balls in a brown leather hold-all just beside the back door. He can loose balls by the dozen and there are always more balls to play with!

Sometimes we live our Christian lives like we are playing golf with a single ball. We play so safe and take so few risks worrying about loosing the little we think we have. We don’t seem to realize that God has given us access to His abundant resources – like the brown leather hold-all just beside the back door.

We can give, and give and keeping giving to the needy world that we live in and always have more to give away.

Let’s stop playing with a single golf ball!

Life Exploding

Earlier on in the week I was reading from Psalm 33:9 “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” Last night, at a prayer meeting, we were reading and contemplating the first chapter of Genesis. It didn’t take much for me to remember those words in Psalm 33.

The spoken word of God is creative. There was no wave of a magic wand, or dipping a divine hand into a celestial top hat and pulling out the earth and all the bits that go to make it up. God spoke things into being. The Message paraphrases v9 as “he spoke and there it was, in place the moment he said so.”

What God spoke into wasn’t small. It wasn’t limited to one or two varieties of things. The land bursts forth with every kind of grass. There are not just one or two stars but a whole sky brimming with them. The waters swarm and teem with fish and the skies fill with birds. There is an abundance of life exploding everywhere in a variety of different forms. There is more than enough. This is like God going over the top, doing more than just the minimum.

When I read the words in Psalm 33, what came to mind was a desire for God to speak words of life over me. In terms of salvation, Jesus’ words, “It is finished” was spoken over me. Sin is finished. Death is finished. The old self with its carnal nature is finished. My citizenship under the prince of darkness is finished. Any old allegiances are finished. I live in the good of what Jesus accomplished.

But I do believe that there are other words that God would like to speak over me. Just as in the creation story there was bursting forth, brimming, swarming and teeming – I think that is for each and every individual life too. As I said last night – I feel very little is happening a lot of the time and long for some kind of spiritual explosion.

I have been in the kind of church that lays hands on people and imparts a blessing. People prophesy over other people. To some extent I fall into the trap of thinking that if the church leader says something then it carries more weight than if I say it. This is so not the case. It is lazy thinking – letting someone else shoulder s responsibility that I can take on for myself.

It is also dangerous thinking. I don’t need to look many years into my Christian history to see people that I was encouraged to think heard more clearly from God. I am not saying that some people are not gifted with discernment and words of knowledge or whatever, but sometimes it is too easy to surrender up that responsibility solely to people in leadership.

I am not a baby Christian. I am well capable of hearing God. That I don’t always trust that I what I hear is from God – that’s a different issue. As much as I would love to take the “easy” option and encourage someone to lay their hand on my shoulder and tell me what God is saying – what I really need to do is to by-pass the middle man, to have God say what he want to say to me directly!

And God will say it!

What if?

What if
I had nothing
But a little oil
In a jar?

What if
God
Told me to do
Something ridiculous?

What if
I were to borrow
Jugs and jars
From friends and neighbours?

What if
From my jar
I could fill
Every empty vessel?

What if
With every jug filled
There was always more
In my jar?

What if
I never stopped
Finding and filling
Another empty jar?

What if
The only reason
There’s an empty jug
Is because I stopped pouring?