How much is enough? Arguably, this may be one of the most relevant questions of our modern age in the Western world. If we base our evidence on the excessive consumption we see around us there is no doubt about the extraordinary buying power that exists in our world today. But is there a direct correlation between more and happier, and if so how much is enough?

Contrast that by examining happiness among the poor. My own brief experiences of working with those we might consider the poorest of the poor, mostly in Central America (as well as my own community), has offered me some insight about this question. Specifically I remember Isabel, a Honduran woman who resided in a deeply impoverished barrio community just outside the city of Tegucigalpa. For a week she and I worked side by side on a project and though we did not speak the same language we became fast friends. At the end of that week as we were saying goodbye Isabel hugged me, then handed me a sweet note written in Spanish on a small tattered card about the size of a business card. I didn’t know what it said but I understood what was meant by her kind gesture. Isabel and her companions were some of the happiest people I’ve ever met, yet they lived in conditions that are unimaginable to most of us.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, perhaps the most renowned servant of the poor in our modern age, once noted of the Western world, “I have walked at night in your streets, I have entered your homes. I have found in them more poverty than in India.” What she was referring to was not economic poverty, but poverty of the soul. So we ask ourselves, how much is enough?

To live in a place where opportunities abound for financial success is a blessing and a privilege, but what are we to do with our abundance and how much is enough? The greatest reward in my profession as a business and executive coach occurs in helping high achieving successful clients transition their focus from success to significance, from money to meaning. It is then they discover that true enrichment is not obtained by gaining but by giving. So, how much is enough? That depends. But it depends not on how much we have, rather on how much we have to give.

Do you ever get restless? I don’t mean the lie-awake-at-night-worrying type of restless, or the cabin-fever restless we all get from being confined in the house too long. I’m talking about the restlessness that occurs from the nagging urge to make a significant life change – new job or career, relocate to another town or city, downsize or upsize your home, re-educate, re-train, or retire. Such restlessness must be examined carefully and prayerfully, for it may simply be a case of frustration, stagnation or boredom. On the other hand it could signify a calling.

My friend Patrick Custer tells the story about his grandfather, a Pentecostal preacher who for many years served as pastor of the largest Pentecostal church in Amarillo, Texas. He and his wife lived in a nice home provided by the church, earned a respectable salary, were highly respected in the community, and generally lived a comfortable life. Then one Sunday morning my friend’s grandfather abruptly resigned for reasons of neither a bigger church, nor to retire. Rather, he and his wife sold all they had and moved into a small trailer in the poorest, most dangerous neighborhood in Amarillo where he had purchased some rundown property. There, with no prior experience in construction, he began to tear down the old dilapidated houses and lay the foundation for a new church. Along the way he somehow convinced a local lumberyard manager to donate the materials, and even more miraculously persuaded the owner of an X-rated movie theater to close down his business and give the theater seats to the church for pews. The two donors, previously strangers by the way, became the church’s first deacons.

Now when the old preacher started the project he was working alone. But soon a couple of drug addict, alcoholic types who had been watching from afar began to pitch in – then another, and another – until about fifty or so were showing up daily to help with the construction. By the time the building was completed and the X-rated theater seats installed, Patrick’s grandfather had not just built a church, but also a thriving congregation.

My friend Patrick, a highly successful businessman and entrepreneur, did not follow in his grandfather’s footsteps as a Pentecostal preacher, but he does credit him for being the most influential person in his life. Understandably so, for what he learned from him is to examine his own restlessness – which occurs from time to time – carefully and prayerfully, and if it signifies a true calling to respond boldly. It’s an inspiring story for all of us – the next time we get restless.

According to a recent interview with Steve Siebold who authored the popular book, How Rich People Think, there exists today more opportunities for people to become millionaires than any other time in history. Now for most of us that may seem to be a rather bold claim given all the negative financial news we’ve heard in the past week, including an unrelenting erosion in the housing market and a continued high rate of unemployment that shows no signs of relief.

In his interview, however – which I happened to catch on the internet – Siebold explained that it is in just such times of rapid change and economic chaos as these that new opportunities arise, and it is those creative, ambitious, entrepreneurial types clever enough to take advantage of it who stand the best chance of reaping substantial financial rewards.

Whether or not Siebold is correct in his claim only time will tell. His message, however, is worth considering. In his book, How Rich People Think for instance, which admittedly I have only scanned and not read, he observes how the middle class – meaning most of us – see money as finite, whereas rich people see money as infinite. Well of course they do we might think, they’ve got lots of it. No, his point is that it is because they see money as infinite that they became rich in the first place, not because they already are rich.

God did not create a world of scarcity, but one that is abundant in resources, which is what makes Steve Siebold’s message worth considering; for even though he uses the language of money it is not about wealth. Rather, I see his message as being about living with an attitude of abundance in all we do. For just as those who see money as infinite will be the ones most likely to become rich, and those who seize the opportunities that exist in the midst of these times of rapid change and economic chaos will become the next successful entrepreneurs, so will those who recognize and appreciate the abundance of creation enjoy a life that is rich and fulfilling. That’s what Abundant Living is all about.

Noted writer and pastor, Charles Swindoll, once became so overwhelmed by too many commitments that he fell into a state of constant irritability and was totally distracted from what was going on around him including his family. “I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day,” he recalled in his book, Stress Fractures. “Before long, things around our home started reflecting the pattern of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable. I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ‘Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’ Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, ‘Honey, you can tell me – and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.’ I’ll never forget her answer: ‘Then listen slowly.’”

Failure to listen – and listen slowly, attentively and with genuine interest and concern – may be one of the greatest deficiencies of our culture today. It is not for lack of opportunities to talk, however, for with cell phones, email, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of instant communication we have become in fact a bunch of chatter-boxes. Who’re missing are the listeners – the real listeners, that is, the ones who listen slowly as Swindoll’s daughter would say.

During a San Francisco study some years back, teenage prostitutes were being interviewed and asked this question: “Is there anything you needed most and couldn’t get?” The overwhelming response, invariably preceded by sadness and tears, was this: “What I needed most was someone to listen to me. Someone who cared enough to listen to me.”

What a generous, caring act it is to genuinely listen to another human being! And how tragic it can be when we fail to do so! “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak . . .” James says in his epistle (James 1:19); for as much as we continue to need better education to develop brilliant minds, great teachers, leaders, and experts in every field, what the world really needs is for all of us to become listeners.

For the past eighteen months or so Tee and I have been on a mission of consolidating things – our possessions that is. Not only have we cleaned out drawers, closets, and attics, but we’ve even been divesting of real estate, except for our home. And it too is about to go on the market, although we do plan to purchase another one more suitable to our current lifestyle. Our mission is not just about getting rid of unwanted junk, though. More importantly it is about letting go of unneeded stuff that distracts us from more important things. Our goal is to put our possessions in proper perspective so we can spend our lives focusing on what really matters.

So what does really matter? We all might answer that in different ways, but I’m willing to bet most of our answers would be surprisingly similar. I’m also willing to bet that few would place possessions at the top of the list of things that really matter. And the more we mature – a polite way to describe getting old – the further down the list possessions get pushed and the greater importance “what really matters” becomes, which is what motivated us to consolidate.

In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster devotes an entire chapter to what he calls “the discipline of simplicity”. In it he advises his readers to, “De-accumulate! Masses of things that are not needed complicate life,” he explains. “They must be sorted and stored and dusted and re-sorted and re-stored ad nauseam. Most of us could get rid of half our possessions without any serious sacrifice. We would do well to follow the counsel of Thoreau: ‘Simplify, simplify.’”

The point is not that possessions are necessarily bad or unimportant. We do need them to live and to live comfortably. But when we become obsessed by them to the point of being distracted from what really matters, it’s time to consolidate as we are in process of doing – to simplify.

I would challenge you to consider this week what really matters, and what might be distracting your focus from that. Do you need to “de-accumulate” and simplify? If so, join the club. We still have more to do.

We just returned from spending a long relaxing weekend on the beach in Florida with some friends, and like most experiences being in the midst of nature – in this case the ocean and seashore – I found myself both fascinated and inspired. What struck me this time was the enormous abundance and endurance of nature – in spite of mankind’s invasion of it and the pollution we seem to impose on it, and even with man’s ongoing attempts to capture and control many of nature’s resources, yet it endures, continuing to abundantly provide. As with all of nature the sea and its shore were here long before any of us and will remain long after we are gone. It was, after all, created first, before mankind was created.

Jesus once said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) What could He have meant by that? According to one devotional writer I read recently, “Jesus is reminding his hearers again that God did not make a world of scarcity. We were not given a life to then spend it in white-knuckled survival.” White-knuckled! What a vivid image of how many of us live, me especially, but why? One answer might be that we have been fooled into believing that true security depends on our capturing and controlling all the resources we can get our hands on, instead of having faith in the creator of nature and the endless resources He provides. God did not make a world of scarcity, rather a world of abundance.

So after sitting on the beach for a long while staring at the endless expanse of sea and sky my eyes were slowly drawn back to the shore where the seagulls and sandpipers were busily scavenging for food along the edge of the surf. They did not appear to be white-knuckled about their survival, nor were they starving or deprived in any way. Neither did I notice them hoarding away their gatherings in some hiding place so that they might be insured of having more tomorrow and thus feel more secure. Rather they seemed perfectly content to rely on nature’s provisions day in and day out.

God did not make a world of scarcity. A long relaxing weekend on the beach helped me be reminded of that. Instead, God made a world of endless and enduring abundance.

Think for a moment of someone who has believed in you. What has that meant to you? How has that made a difference in your life? What would you not have accomplished had it not been for someone believing in you?

Our son, Cecil, works for a large non-profit organization where he serves as director of a program that offers low-income housing for people getting back on their feet. Almost all have been homeless and are recovering from something – many from drug or alcohol addiction, others have been victims of abuse in some way, and some are military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. All, however, are far enough along in their recovery to be self-supporting and qualify for permanent housing.

Having worked with this segment of the population for several years Cecil began to notice a common deficiency. All of them at some level suffer from low self-esteem. So, having recognized this he began to consider what kind of program his organization might provide that could address this issue and also attract universal participation. What he came up with was CPR training. CPR is easy to learn – anyone can do it – training does not require an extensive time commitment, and it is relatively inexpensive. Most importantly it can give this group of people a huge boost in their self-image, not to mention that they may one day use it to save another person’s life. Brilliant!

When Cecil presented this idea to his superiors they embraced it immediately, which then put him on a grant-writing mission to get funding for the program. And so I understand there is already a foundation that has expressed serious interest.

Whether or not this program will be successful is yet to be determined, but it certainly seems like a good idea. But regardless of the outcome the greatest thing my son did was to give these people what every human being needs, someone to believe in them.

Who has believed in you, and how has that made a difference in your life? When have you believed in someone else? We all need someone to believe in us. It is one of the greatest gifts one human being can give to another.

In life every day presents us with a smorgasbord of surprises. In fact, the most certain thing there is about life is the uncertainty of it. Our nature is, however, to view that as mostly a bad thing, something to be feared. Thus we prefer to be in control. For sure uncertainty is sometimes linked with tragedy such as the recent devastating tornadoes in the southern United States, but more often than not surprise is the source of our joy and delight occurring in small ways as the taste of food, the refreshment of the morning air, the laughter of children, or casual conversation with a friend. The late Oswald Chambers explained it this way: “. . . we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation.”

Perhaps our fear of surprise is because our best laid plans are so often disrupted by it. The great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) mused about this in his poem “To a Mouse”. Written as an apology to a mouse who had built her nest beneath some stalks in the middle of a cornfield, only to have it demolished by the blade of the farmer’s plow while plowing the field, the farmer/narrator attempts to tell the little mouse that he meant her no harm. He goes to great lengths in describing the imagined plight of the poor mouse, how she had toiled to build a safe dwelling for her family that would protect them against the approaching bitter cold of winter, only to have her plans go awry. Then, after a lengthy apology the narrator shifts gears a bit and becomes philosophical, and that is where we pick up the familiar line:

“The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go often askew, / And leave us nothing but grief and pain, / For promised joy! Still you are blest, compared with me! / The present only touches you: / But oh! I backward cast my eye, / On prospects dreary! / And forward, though I cannot see, / I guess and fear!”

Poor little mouse! Yet, victim that she was, she is to be envied; for she lives with no preconceived notions of what each day might bring, but in good faith diligently does, in Oswald Chambers’ words, “the duty that is nearest”. We do not know what a day may bring forth. If we could only learn to accept that with “breathless expectation”!

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

This past week, courtesy of our daughter-in-law Sharra’s gracious invitation to accompany her to a doctor’s appointment, we got a first glimpse of our newest grandchild via sonogram. Only sixteen weeks in the womb, yet through the miracle of modern medical technology we were able to see two little arms and two little legs, count ten fingers and ten toes, view both hemispheres of its brain, and four ventricles of its tiny heart through which blood was pumping, all the while wiggling around like its three-year-old older sister. What a sight! We fell in love, as if we hadn’t already.

What does it mean to lay down one’s life for someone else? For the longest time I thought it literally meant martyrdom, such as a soldier falling on a grenade to save his or her comrades, or jumping in front of a bus to prevent someone else from getting run over. Few of us, though – thankfully!! – are placed in such circumstances. But does that mean that the only people able to express such “greater” radical love are those who physically die in place of another? The answer is that it is not so much about dying as it is how we choose to live. Do we choose to live for all we can get out of life, or do we choose to live for all we can give?

According to Jesus, “. . . unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seed.” (John 12:24) Again, this raises the issue that it is not so much about death as we think of it; rather it is about how we choose to live. Do we want our lives to remain a single seed, or do we live for the purpose of producing many seeds?

My heart skipped a beat last week when I witnessed our new grandbaby squirming around in its mommy’s tummy, just as it does every time I hear “grandpa” from the older two. And I realized my only hope for producing many seeds depends on my choosing to be a positive influence on my grandchildren, as well as others – to die to self in order to live for others. “Greater love has no one than this.” . . . . . And by the way, it’s a girl.

Remember leaving home for the first time? If you were anything like me I couldn’t wait to spread my wings and fly. Yet admittedly I entered that rite of passage with a fair amount of mixed feelings – the melancholy thoughts of leaving behind the comforts of home, fear about what unknowns might be lurking around the corner waiting to pounce on my naiveté, yet for me there was the exhilaration of setting out to conquer the world.

Change, it always carries with it the same three elements I just described, albeit at vastly varying degrees of intensity depending on the circumstances. Better said perhaps in his book, Transitions, William Bridges defines change as “that difficult process of letting go of an old situation, suffering the confusing nowhere of in-betweenness, and launching forth again in a new situation . . .” Change is sometimes exhilarating such as that youthful time when we plunge into life full of energy and ideas. Other times it’s like a nuclear attack shattering our hopes and dreams. Else it just slowly evolves over time as we grow older, life happens, and the world as we have known it simply changes. Or as Bridges says in his book, “Things go slowly for a time and nothing seems to change – until suddenly the eggshell cracks, the branch blossoms, the tadpole’s tail shrinks away, the leaf falls, the bird molts, the hibernation begins.”

In all my years as a corporate manager the most difficult tasks I ever faced were initiating changes, whether as minor as installing a new coffee pot or as major as a reorganization. Changes are always difficult, even positive ones. Regardless, they all upset our comfort levels, and for a time lead us down unfamiliar paths. “It is frightening to discover,” Bridges ponders, “that some part of us is still holding on to what we used to be, for it makes us wonder if the change was in fact a bad idea. Can it be that the old thing was somehow right for us and the new thing wrong?”

I still miss home as I once knew it, but I’m glad I left, and more than once I must admit my naiveté has been pounced on by those unknowns lurking about. As to conquering the world? Not likely to happen, but at least I keep working to make a difference in it. Change is seldom perfect and always difficult, yet as William Bridges reminds us, ‘They are key times in the natural process of self-renewal.”