Rev. Judy Record Fletcher is the synod executive of the Synod of the Sun. For the Record is her regular personal column originally published for 11 years in The Presbyterian SUN newspaper.

When I was very young, a popular song was entitled Count your Blessings. One of the lines went, “When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings.”

Aren’t those wonderful words?

For the record, I cannot think of a better way to move into a stewardship season, or any other season for that matter. Friends, so very many of us Presbyterians are richly blessed people. The problem is that we forget to count our blessings.

Stop right now and name a few blessings in your life. No really, do it. I have a family that loves me, a fulfilling call in ministry, friends, a garden, and so much more. I am blessed and I am grateful.

With the financial worries at home and abroad so in the news, many of us tend to over–react and get anxious and fearful about our resources and our lives. We then begin to work out of a theology of scarcity rather than a theology of abundance. And often the problem is not a scarcity of goods or resources; it is the inequitable distribution of those goods and services. Issues of stewardship meet issues of justice.

I do not mean to suggest that some of us do not have financial and other serious challenges or difficulties in our lives. But even then, we have access to more help and options than so many others. In contrast, I keep remembering my friends in Malawi, third poorest nation in the world, who sing and sing with deep and abiding joy in their hearts.

Bottom line: Our “stuff” does not and can not make us happy or give us a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. But, counting our blessings might get us there. Think back on the blessings in your life. Doesn't reviewing them encourage an attitude and behavior of gratitude? Does it nudge us all to remember that “From those to whom much is given, much is expected?”

I want to invite each of us to think on these things as you offer pledges to God through your church and/or charity. Today, let’s commit to try to work out of a theology of abundance and not scarcity. Let’s count our blessings and continue to search for ways to offer thanksgiving to God for these blessings. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

Shalom/Salaam,

Judy

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