Abundance is a state of plentifulness or having an ample quantity or supply of something. It is an abundance of resources, opportunities, or any desired aspects of life that are considered valuable and fulfilling. Abundance, thus, often implies a sense of richness, prosperity, and overflow, exceeding what is necessary or expected. It, therefore, encompasses a feeling of abundance in various areas, including material wealth, relationships, creativity, and spiritual fulfillment. It is a mindset that appreciates the abundance that already exists. And it fosters an attitude of gratitude and contentment while also inviting more blessings into one’s life.
Unveiling God’s Abundant Plan
In our fast-paced world, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that competition drives success. However, as faithful Catholics, we embrace a different perspective. Complication and stress do not arise from being Catholic, though the devil would have you believe otherwise. This lie hinders us from activating our God-given abundant gifts.
Unlocking the Power of Charisms
The Holy Spirit bestows spiritual gifts called charisms upon us. When we activate these charisms, we not find purpose and fulfillment, and contribute to the building up of the Church. By understanding and embracing our abundance of charisms, we become powerful agents of God’s love and transformation.
Escaping the Scarcity Mindset
The scarcity mindset that often plagues the Church is toxic. Therefore, the perception of limited resources and opportunities can create a sense of competition, believing someone else’s success diminishes ours. This is a lie! God is a God of abundance. There is room for each one of us to thrive and contribute in unique ways.
Transforming Our Church Culture
To illustrate the contrast between scarcity and abundance mindsets, Jill draws attention to the lure of gangs. These groups create a sense of belonging, purpose, and adventure, meeting a deep desire within people’s hearts. However, we need not seek these counterfeit sources of fulfillment. God invites us to embrace His abundance and recognize that our diversity manifolds the beauty of His creation.
By activating our gifts and abandoning the scarcity mindset, we can witness the transformative power of God’s abundant love. Pray for the courage to step out of competition and into collaboration, trusting in His provision and following His call.
Learn more at Many Parts Ministries.
Jill Simons [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to Charisms for Catholics. My name is Jill Simons and I’m the executive director at Many Parts Ministries, where we equip the body of Christ by helping people learn about and discern their charisms, which is really another word for spiritual gifts. When you discern your charisms, you’re able to see how the Holy Spirit is already active in your life and where he is inviting you to further build the church.
Jill Simons [00:00:24]:
Let’s dive in. Today we’re going to talk about a topic that I have been itching to cover. It has been crazy how much in preparing this podcast. I know I’ve said in an earlier episode, but I thought that I was going to kind of paint myself into a corner only talking about charisms. But as time goes on, I am just chomping at the bit to talk about so many different things. And this is one of those topics for sure. And today we’re going to talk about competition and charisms and really how we are being invited to look at competition within the church through the lens of charisms. So to dive right in, we have all been given specific gifts by God to build the church. And the devil is not a fan of this plan, right? This is not something that he’s wanting activated in people because it simplifies things a lot. And so as long as the devil can kind of keep this narrative around oh, being Catholic is very complicated and it’s very hard to know what you’re supposed to do and who can really know? There’s just kind of an endless amount of things that you could be doing and this is just probably going to be a stressful part of your life as long as you can perpetuate that narrative. He’s in pretty good shape. And so when we come in and start taking ownership of all the things that the Holy Spirit has already given us, he kind of goes into panic mode of like, okay, how can we triage this situation? They’re opening their gifts from the Holy Spirit. How can we convince them that there’s no batteries? Basically, if you’ve ever had children on Charisms Morning, you know what I’m talking about. They have all these things that they’ve opened and then it’s like, oh, but nobody bought D batteries and so nobody can actually use any of their gifts. And we want to pre purchase the D batteries. We want to be prepared in advance for the fact that there’s going to be these things that come up that the devil is really using as a last ditch effort just to lay there the strategy to keep you from using them. And one of those things is competition. We see this all of the time in our lives. This has been hugely magnified by social media, this struggle with desire for problem with competition in not just the church at all in the general population. And I think that this is something that we need to have a lot more frank conversations about. And I think charisms give us a really helpful context for that conversation because we can, of course, have it without the context of charisms, where we’re just looking at what is God’s invitation for each of us as individuals, how he loves us, how he wants us to be engaged and a part of the Church. And this is not either I get to do this or you get to do this kind of scenario, but he’s wanting to invite everyone in. I think when we talk about it in general terms, it’s easier for that to kind of be water off a duck’s back for people that are really in the midst of the struggle, people that are not particularly struggling with competition are going to be like, yes, absolutely. Of course this totally resonates with me. I feel that beautiful. I love that there are people there that is fantastic and I wish there were vastly more of them. But when you have a person who is locked in the grip of competition and this idea that they are competing and comparing with other people, it’s very hard to receive that and ask me how I know. I say this because this was my biggest hang up for years and years and years, because there was this sense of like, well, gosh, there’s a lot of people who could do what I’m doing right now. What right do I have to do it? Or what need is there of me? Nobody wants this from me. I’m just kind of one person in thousands and there’s nothing kind of special about that. And this leads to this aimlessness and this lack of purpose that can be really toxic for people’s. Personal life, mental health, creativity, go down the list. Like, this is toxic to people in so many ways and therefore an excellent strategy of the enemy to kind of lock us into this immobility where we just don’t want to move forward because it feels like everything is a competition. What I have discovered in my own life, again, I can only speak for myself. I think that this all is going to stay very well within the realm of what the church teaches, but not something everything that I teach is not within the realm of what the church teaches, but it’s not going to be something where I can like, oh, here is the verse in the Bible that says this exact thing. Or here is the line in a Vatican document that’s going to teach you this exact thing. This is all flowing out of who the person of God is, who the person the Holy Spirit is, which is revealed exhaustively in scripture and tradition and what that reality looks like in the human life and how the devil tries to twist that. And so this is very experiential knowledge for me. And so therefore, if any of it doesn’t resonate with you feel free to set it aside because this is not something that I would ever say is required to believe within the context of the church. Okay, disclaimer out of the way. When we look at what creates this sense of competition we see a few things. One is where there is a sense that there is a scarcity, there is only a few spots for people to be active and once they’re filled everybody else is just the hoi poloi and has no place to belong. And so going back to an earlier episode that we did on what the church can learn from gangs, we know that we’re all looking for this sense of belonging, this sense of purpose and this sense of adventure. And so when it seems like there’s a scarcity of those things it seems like only a few people get to belong, only a few people get to have a purpose, only few people get to actually engage in adventure. And so this is a very useful lie for the enemy to nurture in people and to really point to the fact of like oh your life doesn’t look like that. Social media is just like it’s like the devil just ordered up a tool to do his work for him which is just very I have lots of other thoughts about that. We’ll do a charisms and social media episodes sometime in the future. But to stay on the topic at hand of competition in general when we perceive a scarcity that means that we think that someone else having something precludes us from also having it. So this scarcity mindset is rampant in the church. It is toxic, it is evil. We need to get it the heck out of our church. There is nothing that is less biblical, less true, less accurate about God than to say he is a God of scarcity. God is a God of abundance in the truest most extensive extent. God is literally the author of everything, all life, all goodness, all virtue, all provision, all everything. And so anytime that we are perceiving a scarcity that is just automatically a lie we just need to rebuke that right away. Not true. All over it. Every time I’m like I can’t even speak. I’m getting so worked up about this. It’s always wrong, it’s always a lie. God came so that we could partake in his abundance. Not in a sketchy prosperity gospel kind of way, but in a John 1010 way. I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly straight out of the mouth of Jesus Christ. He came for us to access the abundant goodness of God and that looks as diverse as the number of people in the world. So when we have this as a general teaching, this can be challenging because there are people that don’t feel that they are currently experiencing abundance and that might be a factual reality. Maybe there is a real place of lack in their lives. Okay? So what we need to do is look at what the truth is before we look at our own experience of the truth. The truth is that God is a God of abundance. This is out of the mouth of Jesus Christ. We are compelled to believe it as Christians. If Jesus is who he says he is, then every word out of his mouth is true and we need to believe it. He says that he is a God of abundance. And so we need to then examine where the disconnect is in ourselves. This can be really challenging for people to do for obvious reasons. What I think charisms helps us with is looking at the specific places in our lives where we have experienced the abundance of God as a doorway to generally renew our minds about the abundance of God, about the abundance God wants to give in all of our lives. What does this look like practically? Well, basically charisms become this magnifying glass that helps us zero in on the parts of our lives where we have likely already experienced the abundance and the goodness of God, but also equally likely undervalue that movement of the Holy Spirit. So this magnifying glass of going through a charism discernment process and articulating, this is my charism helps us say, okay, we’re having this general problem of struggling to see the abundance of God in life. Let’s look at the expression of your charism and how abundant the grace has been from maybe even just the few accidental times you’ve used it. I’m not talking about like paragons of ministry here. I’m talking about your person who is butt in the pew every Sunday but maybe forgets to pray half days, half of the days. This is someone who is casually walking with the Lord. We can look at where are these times that you’ve just fallen in by happenstance to using your charisms? Let’s look at the fruit of that. And then there’s an opportunity for invitation into how about if you do this intentionally? How about if you intentionally use your charisms and see what the fruit is in that and then if God wants to do that in you through you abundantly maybe could that be true in the rest of your life? And it becomes a very powerful doorway in which people are able to allow this teaching to enter their lives. This has been my experience. If you ask me what I struggle with about God, it is provision 100% until about, I’m going to say like six months to a year ago. The last six months to a year it has vastly decreased and it’s because I’ve been doing this exact thing. So this advice is out of what has personally worked for me. Always struggled with the abundance of God and the fact that he was going to provide and being able to exist in this place of dociility to the Holy Spirit to actually receive his provision. So competition. Oh, my gosh. This is, like, wound number one. You want to talk to 17 year old Jill, and you’re just like, Holy cow. She is just real tied up in competing with literally everyone. And I want to be extremely vulnerable and clear about my personal journey on that front. Because, again, what you see in me, if you see good things in me, that is the presence of the Holy Spirit in me and the fact that I have benefited from the exposure to the knowledge to allow me to understand how to just get out of his way more. That is essentially the life I live where I’m learning more and more and more and more how to get out of his way so that more of my life is Him living in me, and less of my life is me living in myself and getting in the way. And so this has been a place where I have been experiencing a lot of renewal about letting the Holy Spirit live in me instead of me living primarily in me. And what I think it comes down to is whether or not you feel like it is safe to trust God. And that is I probably will do a whole series of episodes about that, because that’s a complex, big topic. But I think it’s important and foundational to articulate the fact. If you don’t think that it’s safe to trust God, if that is your reality right now, I encourage you to say that. You can say it out loud right as you’re listening to this. Say, God, I am not sure that it’s safe to trust you. Because what happens when we say that, that becomes a lot less scary, right? When that’s, like, our dark secret that we don’t know if we can trust God, then it becomes this awkward dance that we’re doing with Him, and God is like, okay, I guess we’re awkward dancing. Like, this is not what I have for you, but I’m following your lead here because I respect your free will. But when we come in humility to God with this reality, I don’t know if it’s safe to trust you, then he can say, let’s unpack that. Let’s work on that. Let’s figure that out. He can put people in your life that you will actually be receptive to that can walk with you through that. And you can also begin to ask and say, this is something not in this specific context, but I teach my children to pray every time they pray, like, Jesus, I love you. Help me to love you more. And it’s the same thing you can start saying before you believe it. Like, God, I don’t know if it’s safe to trust you, but I trust you, and I need your help to trust you more. You can say it before you believe it. I think recognizing your baseline is really, really powerful. There but this ties so closely to competition because ultimately, what is the fear in comparing ourselves to other people? The fear is that we are less loved, that we are less safe, that we are less taken care of, that we are less valuable. And so when we have that fear operating in our life, it’s clear that we cannot be operating from a place of trust that just can’t coexist in the same space. And so one will kill the other. And like the old story about there’s two wolves at war, which one wins? It’s the one you feed. And so you can choose to feed your trust in God that he wants to provide for you, or you can choose to feed the fear and competition and the need to compare yourself with other people. And so to bring it back around to how charisms come into this. Charisms are a place where we can more quickly and natively, in many situations, experience the abundance of God. And I’m not talking about limited to financial abundance. I’m talking about his goodness in all forms, which is truly what his abundance is about. It’s very limiting to define that so narrowly as financial abundance. Is that a piece of it? Yes. He wants to provide for our needs, but God’s goodness is so much more comprehensive than that. And so our charisms become a way that we can, when we’re still in the midst of struggle with comparison and competition, say, god, I’m going to give this to you, and I would like you to share with me your goodness and Your abundance in this so that I can share it with other people. Because here’s the other thing that happens when we do that. When we recognize that our charisms have been given to us, number one, and are necessary for the upbuilding of the church, number two, then it is no longer possible that there’s not a place for us. It is no longer possible that we do not belong. That’s just off the table because there is no world in which you are given gifts that God doesn’t want you to use. Does that make any logical sense? I think that this is something I needed somebody when I was like 17 years old to have this conversation with me. So I’m having it with you right now out of, like, wishing I could have it with my 17 year old self. Is it logical for God to give you a sled, to sled on the snow if you live in Hawaii? No, it’s not. Then why do we think it’s logical that God’s going to give us a spiritual gift, a charism that then he doesn’t give us any space to use? That just doesn’t make any sense. That makes no sense. And so if we have been given a gift, then there is a place for us and we do need to use it. And we can keep our eyes on our own paper. We don’t have to worry about what other people are doing and how well they’re doing it and what kind of space they’re doing it in, because our space is secure. We can trust God. We can point to the very real, tangible evidence of the gift we’ve been given as the support for that trust and our experience of that abundance in our lives. And we can open up the possibility of moving away from competition and comparison, because there are a lot of people with the same gifts in the church. There’s only 24 of them, and there’s like a billion of us. Literally, there are people who have the same charisms as you, but if you weren’t being asked to use them, you would not have been given them at all. And so therefore, you are being asked to use them. And what one other, two other 150 other of those billion people are doing with the same charisms as you is a source of inspiration for you to continue to reach into the fullness of what God is doing and not for you to feel disqualified by the fact that they have been given gifts as well. I hope that that touches your heart. If this is a struggle for you, and if this is something that you’d like to hear more about, go ahead and send us an email. Leave us a comment. I’d love to dive into specific aspects of this more if this is something that people need, especially trust in God and how we can look at other people’s expression of the gifts, I hope that you have the best week.
Jill Simons [00:21:21]:
Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode of Charisms for Catholics.
Jill Simons [00:21:26]:
If you would like to learn more.
Jill Simons [00:21:27]:
About your charisms or begin your own discernment journey, head to our website@manypartsministries.com where you can download our free PDF guide to all 24 charisms and also begin your own journey by taking our Charism assessment.
