Fear of Scarcity

        Is the glass half-full or half-empty? We have all heard the question, but really, it is just a glass with water in it. If you are filling it, it is half-full; if you are drinking from it, it is half-empty. Either way, at a restaurant, it will probably be refilled. Yet we still get stuck in scarcity thinking.

               If I had a dollar for every time someone asked during stewardship, “What if there isn’t enough?” I would be filthy rich. That question comes from scarcity: the fear that there will never be enough. But if fear decides what is enough, we will always find another reason to hold back. Scarcity makes us anxious, greedy, and self-protective, teaching us to chase more instead of giving thanks for what we already have. Scarcity spreads quickly. If we believe there will not be enough, why give at all? If fear convinces us the church is dying, we help make that fear come true. When we withhold out of fear, we participate in our own decline.

Here is the real issue: fear of scarcity reveals a lack of trust. Faith teaches us to be grateful for what we have, and gratitude leads to generosity. I will never use fear to make you give, because fear does not create faithfulness; it only leads us where we do not want to go. Scripture says God loves cheerful givers, not fearful ones. Those who sow generously reap generously. God does not want giving rooted in pressure or resentment, but in joy that grows both the giver and the community.

I will end with this. When I was a kid in Topeka, my parents’ church needed a new parking lot. Someone said, “I guess we’ll have to give until it hurts.” Mary, a church grandmother to me, replied, “No. We’ll give until it feels good.”