{"id":6532,"date":"2014-02-09T01:01:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T06:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=6532"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"what-we-have-and-who-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/what-we-have-and-who-we-are\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT WE HAVE AND WHO WE ARE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Calvin<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Some people come into the world with a tremendous financial advantage.\u00a0 Their forebears have provided them with substantial resources.\u00a0 Some folk make the most of it and live productive lives.\u00a0 Others squander their inheritance by reckless mismanagement.\u00a0 It is no crime to enter into life with a prosperous endowment.\u00a0 There is nothing wrong with having one’s life fully funded.\u00a0 It is a sin, however, to abuse one’s advantage.\u00a0 To whom much has been given much is required.\u00a0 There is a stewardship of life which expects us to do the best we can with what we have.\u00a0 There is such a thing as responsible abundance.\u00a0 Affluent folk are uniquely blessed with many avenues of special service to humankind.\u00a0 No matter what our status at birth we have a lifetime to establish our worth.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We sometimes refer to people entering life with an abundance of material resources as having been born “with silver spoons in their mouths.”\u00a0 Perhaps most of us feel as if we were born with “rusty spoons” in our mouths.\u00a0 We certainly brought nothing into the world.\u00a0 We had little offered us on arrival and we are leaving very little behind in terms of material wealth.\u00a0 Nonetheless, we are trying to do the best we can with what we have.\u00a0 Whatever good, whatever bad, whatever rich, whatever poor, whatever great, and whatever small there is about us, we are primarily responsible.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The kind of spoon with which we were born need not determine the quality of our contribution.\u00a0 Just as it is no crime to be rich, it is no crime to be poor unless our poverty is a poverty of soul.\u00a0 God has created us with the freedom to be the best we can be with the set of circumstances life has imposed upon us.\u00a0 He does not require us to build a financial fortune.\u00a0 He expects us to be fruitful and multiply.\u00a0 He wants the spot we inhabit on planet earth to be productive.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God desires that we use our creative energies in positive ways.\u00a0 Whether we come into the world with a “silver spoon” or a “rusty spoon” we still have a purpose.\u00a0 We start from where we are and move to where we can be by the grace of God.\u00a0 Neither riches nor poverty is an excuse for lazy living.\u00a0 Yet, it is not ours to\u00a0harshly judge the poor or the rich without\u00a0knowing the circumstances. \u00a0We take hold of that bit of life we have been given and pursue the richness of God’s possibilities for us.\u00a0Our investment is called “commitment.”\u00a0 <\/span>His return is called “contentment.”\u00a0 No matter what kind of spoon from which we eat, we are either nourished or impoverished by what we digest.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     Some people come into the world with a tremendous financial advantage.  Their forebears have provided them with substantial resources.  Some folk make the most of it and live productive lives.  Others squander their inheritance by reckless mismanagement.  It is no crime to enter into life with a prosperous endowment.  There is nothing wrong with … Continue reading “WHAT WE HAVE AND WHO WE ARE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-6532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19147,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532\/revisions\/19147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}