Finding Balance: Abundance and Order in Life

and that the reason that we need them so much in our lives is that they were the basic tools that were present in the hand of god at the time of creation and um you can see at the very beginning in genesis when there is just nothing but chaos uh the earth was formless and void and then god begins to bring order [00:01:08]

and then on the next three days days four five and six of creation we see an infusion of abundance and vitality so on the fourth day god creates the sun and the moon not deities to be worshipped like in the rest of the near east but objects of god's creation but not just the sun and the moon in the skies he fills it with stars [00:02:08]

if you have no order and no abundance then you have nothing and that's where the book of genesis starts on the other hand if you have uh lots of abundance but you have no order at all then you have chaos that might be the bedroom of a teenager you can think of all kinds of examples where there is lots of abundance but no chaos [00:04:08]

and any notes how a few centuries ago under newtonian physics people thought that the universe functioned like a machine it was like a giant clock and everything was utterly predictable there were real tiny little things called atoms and we knew exactly how they worked and now my son who's getting his phd in physics tells me that the universe itself is nothing like that [00:04:48]

so that the universe itself is not like a giant machine at all it is bubbling with possibility and opportunity and yet all of that is arranged in such a way that there is also this amazing wonderful order and time and weather and so so when you have uh lots of abundance and lots of order and they're mixed together in the right way then you have shalom [00:05:21]

one of the ways that you can think about sin is when there is a lack either of abundance or a lack of order we will often talk about sins being sins of commission or sins of omission sins of commission greed lust gluttony or so when there is too much abundance but not enough order to regulate things [00:06:44]

or sins of omission lovelessness joylessness are sins of omission where there's not enough abundance not enough vitality not enough life and it's interesting that often we mistake spirituality or spiritual maturity for an excess of orderlies that orderliness and a lack of abundance but lovelessness in jesus eye may be the most serious sins of all [00:07:08]

dallas willard used to say that the simplest way to categorize spiritual practices those are activities that i engage in to receive power from god to be changed so that i can do what i don't do today he says we might think about those as activities disciplines practices of engagement or of abstinence [00:07:47]

engagement is when i uh act in activity take on activities that i normally would not do so i celebrate or i worship or i fellowship or i study now those are activities that increase abundance in my life and so they counteract sins of omission where there is a lack of abundance in my life [00:08:12]

and that is why i refrain from doing stuff that i might normally do so solitude i refrain from engaging in relational activity with other people silence i i refrain from noise and talking fasting and so on and i do these things to bring greater order in my life when there had been a lack of order [00:08:44]

do you need in your life more abundance today more vitality more energy more creativity more innovation more unpredictability or would you benefit today by having some more order by making a plan by committing yourself to something i was reflecting this morning on last night nancy was gone and so last night i just vegged out in front of a television [00:09:45]

see the purpose of order is so that we can better experience abundance vitality life energy and what gives meaning to life energy and vitality it is when it is ordered by the word so that it can be offered to god and other people in love and fruitfulness so there it is life is all about abundance [00:10:37]