Black, Woman and Winning!: She who has much, more will be given

For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. Matthew 25:29

I used to have a problem with this saying from the gospels. It seemed so cruel and so unfair to me. I used to think about all those around me who didn’t have much and how that even what they had, God would cause to be taken away. That didn’t sound like God who was supposed to be caring and loving especially of the downtrodden. In fact this particular saying comes from one of Jesus famous parables; the parable of the talents and in it God (who in the story is the talent giver) sounded positively capitalist through and through in that scripture, bang smack in the center of the 1% with all his talk of giving his money to the bankers for profit. He sure wasn’t on the side of those who wanted a redistribution of wealth!

Now for those who don’t know this parable, it's the one where a man goes on a journey but gives each of his stewards varying amounts of money to trade with while he is away. On his return, the steward with the least money has done nothing with his 'talents' and throws the money in his face. The steward, receives not just a dressing down but some humiliation and punishment (you can read the whole of Matthew 29 for the full story).

Well I have somewhat grown up since feeling upset about unfair dealings, and there are two things that I have learnt about that parable.

The world system works to a capitalist imperative as it has done for thousands of years whether we like this reality or not. You and I have to 'make profit', show an improvement, make returns and innovate on what we have been given or we are just a waste of space.
The other thing is that it is you who decides whether you have more or less (which will then be taken away)! Phew that one was a revelation to me! It blew my mind when I realized that it wasn’t God or another person that determined that the person who had 1 talent had less, it was him himself who decided he had less by his actions. By not making a profit, by not trying to do something however small and meager with the money he was given, he declared himself to 'not have'. The giver of the talent clearly rated the talent he gave him and saw him capable of making returns on it!

Folks it's all a matter of perspective. If you feel that you have nothing then you will essentially have nothing. How many of us know people who have many blessings, blessings that the rest of us are begging to have but they don’t rate their blessings and they cant even see it! I know of two people in my circle of acquaintances and friends who always complain about their plight and yet they are surrounded by blessings and good things, the rest of us would give an arm to have.

Many of us can testify that not using our talents and gifts means ultimately loosing them whether this be a musical skill or a knowledge of a computer package. If you do something with what you have however big or small, it will yield, taking you towards abundance. Never look down on the little you have. No doubt this steward was upset at being given the smallest allocation to trade with, but he could have seen it as an opportunity to be creative and innovative or even seen it as an opportunity to do the bare minimum with the money which the master was happy to accept.

Whatever you have to work with be it big or small, it is your attitude to your resource that will determine what you make of it. You might not have loads of talents and loads of money but be assured that the race has quite often gone in the favor of David (with his meager but critical attributes), than the obvious bet Goliath!

It is important that you adopt the mindset of 'I have much', no matter that you think you have little. This is because with this attitude, you put yourself on the path to getting more rather than on the path of ultimately loosing what you have.

Next blog post 17 Nov

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