I listened to a recording recently of two men having a
conversation about the nature of abundance. In their
conversation, the dominant metaphor for abundance was
water. They said that we are like fish swimming in the
ocean, not recognizing that we are immersed in abundance
all the time.

I listened to a recording recently of two men having a
conversation about the nature of abundance. In their
conversation, the dominant metaphor for abundance was
water. They said that we are like fish swimming in the
ocean, not recognizing that we are immersed in abundance
all the time.

As metaphors go, this is an intriguing insight into the
nature of abundance. I have no idea of the consciousness
level of a fish, but I imagine that fish don't analyze
their surroundings much. They live in water, but have no
consciousness that they are swimming in water. And this is
the point of the metaphor. We live in an abundant world,
but don't see abundance because it is the medium of our
lives.

But there is a missing piece to the metaphor. The missing
piece turns scarcity into real abundance in our lives. The
missing piece involves a bucket.

Instead of the thinking of yourself as a fish swimming in
the ocean, think of yourself in a rainstorm.  Rain is on my
mind these days. I am writing this in the middle of a heavy
rainstorm. The jet stream from Alaska has dipped down
farther south than usual, bringing rain and rain and more
rain. The San Francisco Bay Area just broke the record for
the number of rainy days in March. So far in April, it has
rained every day. Forecasters predict the rain will
continue for the next two weeks.

And so with rain on my mind, I ask:  How is it that you can
live in an abundant universe and not increase your own
abundance?  The answer is simple. You aren't holding out
your bucket.

If you want to collect rain water, you don't just stand in
the stuff. You do something to collect the water. You take
along a bucket. You set up a cistern. You use water tanks.
You dig reservoirs. Otherwise, the water rolls off you as
water rolls off a duck.

And this is what sets apart those who live in abundance and
those who live with lack. Those who live in abundance do
something to collect the water. They take a bucket with
them. They build cisterns, water tanks, and reservoirs.
Those who live with lack just stand in the rain and get wet.

In other words, the ones who live in abundance know how to
receive. Those who live in lack don't.

One of the real reasons so many of us struggle with lack in
our lives is that we internalized the words, "It is more
blessed to give than receive."  This Bible verse, taken out
of context, sets up a value judgment: Giving is better than
receiving.

I'm not going to do the critical work involved in telling
you what the Greek words mean, or putting in these words in
their biblical context. Let's just look at the words
themselves and ask what is wrong with this kind of
universalizing statement.

Consider breathing. You breathe in and you breathe out.
Somehow, we all got the idea that it is okay to receive
when we breathe. What if you decide that it is better to
breathe out than to breathe in? You can't live very long
before you realize that breathing is a cycle. If you want
to continue to live, you need to receive air into your
lungs as much as you need to breathe it out.

Even the rain itself is a cycle. The rain falls on Earth,
runs into the creeks and rivers, flows back into the ocean,
gets picked up into clouds and falls on Earth again. Breath
and rain are part of life's cycles of giving and receiving.
But when it comes to Bible verses, this awareness of the
cyclical nature of life often gets replaced by categories
straight out of Greek philosophy.

The ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, divided reality
into opposing pairs, and then attached value judgments that
one element of each pair was better than the other. So
"reason is better is than emotion." "Male is more human
than female." "A free man is a more moral being than a
slave," and on and on.

Christian theology picked up many of these same value-laden
dichotomies, and imposed them on biblical statements and
stories. As a result, many Christian people learned to
think in dual categories, with value judgments attached.
One example is that Christian theology has taken this one
verse: "It more blessed to give than to receive," and
turned it into a one-sided rule for life.

From this simplistic notion, many of us learned that giving
is better than receiving. The obvious question is: How can
you give what you don't have?  And if you give all you
have, how can you give any more?  To give, you have to have
something to give. And to have something you have to
receive it first.

Giving and receiving together are part of the cycle called
abundance. Abundance is a dance, involving give and take,
back and forth, ebb and flow.

And so, if you are wondering how to create abundance in
your life, claim the metaphor of rain as abundance. If you
are standing in the rain, hold out your bucket.


About the Author:

Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
FREE Ebook "Do You Know The Money-Making Secret In The
Monopoly Game?"
http://www.nomoneylimits.com