The Trap Of Living In Scarcity

Some years ago, I read a wonderful quote from Abraham Lincoln that caused me to chuckle, but also to think more deeply: 

“I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”

There's a lot you can do with that quote, to be fair, but today I'm thinking about it in terms of generosity.  For a lot of us who claim to be Christian, religion can become a mask that we put on when it suits us, especially when it comes to living out of abundance rather than scarcity.

We claim to want to follow Jesus, and then gloss over all of the numerous passages in the Gospels where Jesus encourages his followers to give away their possessions and learn to live with less.    

Far too many of us measure ourselves by what we own, or what we have accumulated, whether it be wealth, possessions, power, or influence.  When we do this, life begins to shrink. 

Our calendars fill, our closets bulge, and still we worry there won’t be enough—enough money, enough time, enough recognition. 

The gospel tells a different story: we are not what we have; we are who God loves. Generosity is the practice that loosens our grip on lesser identities so we can receive the truer one—beloved, forgiven, free.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Baldwin once observed: 

“It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.” 

Baldwin names the trap: when we cling, we’re not protecting ourselves; we’re protecting a brittle story about ourselves.

Jesus tells a similar truth in the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16–21). The man builds bigger barns but loses his soul. Why? Because “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). 

The heart follows the hand. When our hands close around possessions, our hearts close, too. But when our hands open, our hearts learn to trust. 

Scripture reframes ownership as stewardship—“The earth is the Lord’s” (Psalm 24:1)—and promises that giving enlarges us: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Paul adds that God loves a cheerful giver, not a pressured one (2 Corinthians 9:7). 

Generosity is not a tax; it’s a training—away from scarcity, toward abundance; away from fear, toward faith.

To live generously is to insist that grace, not scarcity, is the truest reality. Each gift—money, time, attention, forgiveness—chips away at the false self and reveals the image of God within. We become the kind of people who can carry joy because our hands aren’t full of fear.

So practice open-handed living—not out of duty, but for freedom’s sake. Give because you are already held by the One who gave himself for you.

Prayer
God of abundance, loosen my grip on lesser treasures. Teach my heart to trust You, to delight in giving, and to find my true self in Your generous grace. Make my hands open and my life spacious with love. Amen.

Reflection Questions

1. What “system of reality” am I guarding when I hesitate to give?

2. Where could I practice generosity this week—financially, relationally, or with my time?

3. How might trusting God’s abundance reshape my identity and daily choices?