In Abundance

My wife and I went to visit friends in San Diego over the weekend and stayed overnight in their beautiful home. It’s a huge Tuscan Italian style house with a long winding driveway that leads to a magnificent porte-cochere and when you enter the ceilings are over 20’ high. Everywhere you look their home is filled is gorgeous furniture and furnishings, not the least of which is the fully stocked kitchen with state of the art appliances, a dream kitchen for someone like my wife who loves to cook.

I mention this because my wife and I used to own a similar style Tuscan home in Coto de Caza. All the way home I kept thinking about the big beautiful house we use to have compared to the tiny beach cottage we live in now and I found myself feeling guilty that I am not providing a nicer home and nicer furnishings for my wife. I am not saying that I don’t love our beach cottage…I mean it is right on the sand…but sometimes as a man, I just find myself wanting to be the best possible provider that I can be.

And that got me thinking…

If I made a list of the five finest possessions I used to have - it would include a really nice home with a gourmet kitchen, a pool, an expensive BMW, a boat and a grand piano. If I made a list of the five possessions I have now - it would include a couch, a TV, a bed and a late model Ford Truck, that’s it. Oh yeah…and my golf clubs. Not a very impressive list for sure.

But what if I made a list of the five things God has abundantly given me. Love, Forgiveness, Mercy, Happiness and Everlasting Life. Now that’s an impressive list! And here’s the cool part. All that stuff, all those possessions we think we want to have and work so hard to get, we never really have, because none of it really belongs to us and we certainly can’t take any of it with us when we die. However, all the stuff God gives us, He gives us at birth…free of charge…and we totally get to take it with us when we go. Now that’s really cool!

I’m not saying it’s bad to want material things and work hard to have them. Been there, done that. But I guess what I started realizing as I fought through traffic to get back to my tiny little beach house last night, is that if I want to be the best possible “provider” for my wife, kids, family and friends, then what I need to give them are not things. What I need to give them are my love, forgiveness, patience, help and support…and do so in abundance!

Debby and I on the front porch of our Coto house in 2012

You give but little when you give of your possessions. 

It is when you give of yourself, that you truly give.

 ~ Kahlil Gibran