a picture of life Abundantly

 

I saw a small picture of life Abundantly yesterday.  I actually had a bad day yesterday.  It seemed like I must have had too high of expectations because I was disappointed repeatedly--went swimming with cold, cold wind, got ready late, went out the door without my only money for groceries, dropped cans of beans at the store--frightening an old lady (but not too bad), was crowded at the store, could only use one and not two coupons, burnt my and Jonathan's lunch to the pan so half was wasted, and so on.....
But this is something that reminded me of meaning real early on (after swimming) and I thought about it throughout the day.  And it's about life Abundantly:
I get to a long stoplight and am 3 cars back.  A whole green light is wasted with nobody going and I thought it was because they were yielding and couldn't turn left.  A girl (1st in the line)--who is maybe 20? she's wearing pajama pants and flip-flops--gets out of her car that is at this point obviously not working.  She starts looking around and the light is red now.  I see the lady in front of me (2nd in line, you got it) and I wonder if she's peeved.  I wasn't peeved, but I was feeling kinda bad and sad and embarrassed and even still like I didn't know what to do for the girl.
When the light turns green again, she has to yield, but starts trying to push her lug-of-a-car into the intersection.  She can't move it, so she takes her flip-flops off and keeps trying.  I'm thinking oh, bless her heart, but I'm too wet and flip-floppish myself that I just put myself on auto-opt-out.  Here's what I love, the 4th guy in line (yes, behind me) gets out and makes haste to go up there and just starts pushing the heck out of her car.  They are not having to yield, they are just getting on through the intersection.  As they near the end of their turn, a guy from the opposite side of the intersection comes running and joins in the push.  The three of them haul their tails until they can get it to a safe and reasonable place.  #2 and I find our way through the slow obstacle course.
That's the story. But it is those things in life that make me so happy about God's Abundance.  We are stuck in such a world that is sometimes so orderly (the God part), but sometimes so Out-Of-Order (the human part) and so when humans decide to take their role in the God part, it's A-W-E-S-O-M-E.  C'mon, a girl's car breaks down and I actually feel like I want to be a part of it all.  The girl gets to have help in a time of need--when she's otherwise stuck and embarrassed.  The guys are making haste to go push because they see a challenge in this lug-of-a-car and aren't too hurried off in another direction to help. 

We've all been there like that girl in some situation or another.  Anyway, I try to make my blog about this life Abundantly stuff.  Now I will take some time to explain my blog title.

Our life in this world just is.  Sometimes it's too good to be true, but never for so, so long.  Sometimes it's too awful to be true, and often way longer than we would like, but never for so, so long.  Usually, it's just get outta bed, do things, and go back to bed.
Reading posts and facebooks and all these personal advertisements of different individuals sometimes makes me jealous because some people just brag about how amazing and perfect everything is in life.  But I remind myself that no matter how they sell things, they are just like me, living life the best they can and taking what they get (and sometimes making the effort to get something better).  Sometimes people do make their life better, but it's just distracting, because it's not really better in the true sense, it just feels better.  People feel better when they take their life and separate it from worse things until they don't have a lot on their shoulders.  Moving out of a rugged downtown, shopping only at nicer places, paying extra for good looking things, and so on.
Anyway, that's the "just is" part of our lives.  Then there's the intervention portion of our lives.  That's God.  That's the way He wanted things to be in the Beginning.  We ruined our world to the point that death is still all around us, whether you ignore it or not.  But God is eternal and good and beautiful and He cannot die out like all the temporal flesh.  So we get snippets of this Eternity, this Good, this Beauty.  So that's why the "l" is small, but the "A" is capitalized.  Jesus is Life.  He is Abundant Life and came so we may have it.  Soon we will have capital life, but right now--temporarily--we just have momentary life.  The major significance is in the Abundance that He provides.  And it's 'abundantly' because it is an adverb (describes a verb) and life is a verb.  We do life, we act life, no matter how stationary it all seems sometimes.
It is Abundance when people leave where they are comfortable to meet others needs--moving to Pakistan because of a real need to meet instead of moving to China where all "the glorious missionary work" is;  Staying in Pakistan when all the frilly ideas of missionary life are gone and you're sick of the culture; praying for the 'Christ in you' to be enough for others, when all you want to do is get comfortable and quit; having compassion on others in a 'less fortunate' situation and praying for them with compassion; pushing a girl's car that broke down; talking to a homeless person that used to be your neighbor.
life isn't Abundant when people leave where they are comfortable to look better and feel better about themselves (moving away for a more Christian life; making a large salary to selfishly own 90% and only give 10% away; slapping cash at pitiful things so they can stop looking bad).  God is always Abundant though, even when we aren't living that way.  Then there's attitude.
I believe a person's godly attitude can be Abundance in any situation.  Godly attitude displays a very enormous picture of life Abundantly.  This is why Paul is always going on and on about being thankful in every circumstance.  Thankfulness will give birth to joy--I believe it.  This is a gargantuous area of work that needs to be done in my life.  I know God will work it out of me in due time.

Attitudes are crazy because attitudes that are nourished with God's Holy Spirit just trail around and spill Abundance all over everything and everybody else, no matter what the circumstance.  And those people just energize me! 
Thanks for reading.  I hope this encourages you.