More than Enough
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Terra Greer.
Enough for Today
1 Kings 17:14
For this what YHWH, the God of Israel, says: “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day YHWH makes it rain on the land.”
We continue to wander in the wilderness this Second week of Lent. We don’t know where our next meal will come from; the security of our old ways have been removed.
After Elijah proclaims a drought, God sends him to different places for food and water. After the first place dries up, God sends him to this widow for food. And she is without hope to sustain her and her son, let alone another person. Understandably so. She is without economic sustenance, and without food. She has just enough for one more meal and then death.
But Elijah proclaims that her food will not run out until the rains return. Even knowing how little she has. Even knowing that it might be a long time until the rains return.
How much trust would she have of this stranger’s words when she heard them?
Maybe she gives out of her hopelessness. Her death is already on the schedule, so why not just help the stranger first? Why not receive his blessing, as dubiously trustworthy as it may be?
In what way are you afraid of trusting in a possible good thing? What is something you could do to offer or receive help, regardless of what happens?
More than Enough
Matthew 14:19
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
There is an abundance of broken pieces. Even though everyone is fed to satisfaction and with many leftovers, it is an abundance of broken pieces left over.
It is only after getting the crowd to sit down, blessing the food, and breaking it does the miracle of the food multiplying happen. Only after it’s broken. Only in community.
It may not seem like we have enough, of food, of hope, of support. But maybe our communities can take the broken pieces of what we do have and it will become more than enough for everyone.
How can we bring our needs to community and/or to God? How can we satisfy the needs we hear about from our community, even if only in part?
Spreading Seeds
2 Corinthians 9:6
The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
This verse has the potential to be read in many ways, including in harmful and exploitative ways.
However, I want to read this thinking about making our world a better place.
Those who sow generously, who offer compassion to one another, who share their food with those who have none, who speak out against injustice, who love their enemies, who survive in a world that wants people like them dead, who stay gentle in a harsh world, who rest themselves, who critically think about what they’re being asked to do, who practice joy and hope, who gum up and destroy the societal machinery that harms people, they will reap generously.
When we spread so many seeds of justice, even in little actions and ways of being in our day-to-day lives, we will reap a generously more just world.
What ways of spreading seeds of a better world are you already doing? What ways would you like to cultivate?
Beloved
Psalm 111:2
Great are the works of the [Beloved], studied by all who delight in them.
When I was in college, I was afraid that I wasn’t worth loving. I ended my first serious relationship, lost all my friends to my ex, was too close to failing the last few classes i needed for graduating, and my day to day life felt like suffering. I didn’t feel like I could love myself if I couldn’t do something that proved I was worth loving first. And it didn’t feel like anyone, not even me, loved me.
In one moment I vividly remember to this day, I shouted, “What is the point?!” And God loosened the stranglehold of my own perfectionism, and told me “You are loved unconditionally”.
I was filled to overflowing with the feeling of God’s warm love, when I had been freezing and aching for anybody’s. And I was transformed.
Because God loved me first, I could now love myself, even if everything else went wrong.
What works has the Beloved done for you? How have you experienced transformation?
In the Drought
1 Kings 17:15-16
[The widow] went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the [BELOVED] that [She] spoke by Elijah.
On the last handful of meal and a little bit of oil, she was somehow able to feed herself and others for many days. The dubious blessing of the traveler has turned out to be solid. The God he worships came through, and did this miracle of abundance in the midst of this drought.
In the drought, God still expressed care for Her prophet, for the widow, and the widow’s son. She provided their sustenance, and did so abundantly, even when it didn’t seem like they had hardly enough.
God will not leave us to manage our problems alone. Xe will hear our cries and be present with us in all of our circumstances.
And it will pan out; God’s promises will be kept, even if we don’t see how it’s possible. The drought will end, though we know not when.
Where in your life do you struggle to trust that there will be enough? What helps you trust that God is present during “drought seasons” in life?