Hi friends,
This weekend, I am getting ready to preach at Beaver Creek Wesleyan Church in North Liberty, Indiana. It is a small church in a largely agrarian community, and I am told there may be twenty-five or thirty people gathered.
A couple of weekends ago, I was speaking in a very different setting at Harvard Divinity School, surrounded by several hundred people. Last week, I was consulting with the American Society of Missiology at Asbury Theological Seminary. That brought me back to Wilmore, Kentucky, eleven years after completing my PhD there—and into a community of mission scholars and practitioners that has been part of my life for nearly eighteen years.
Those gatherings were fun and deeply meaningful.
But I am just as excited about this little church.
Perhaps that is because the significance of a gathering cannot be measured by the size of the room. Sometimes a few hundred people gather around a large academic conversation. Sometimes twenty-five people gather in a rural sanctuary. In both places, we may discover something about the work of God—and about our place within it.
This weekend, I will be preaching from Exodus 36:2–7.
Whether this story is familiar to you or entirely new, its conclusion is wonderfully strange.
The people of Israel are contributing materials for the construction of the tabernacle—the sacred place that will stand at the center of their shared life. God has given Bezalel, Oholiab, and other artisans the wisdom and ability to undertake the work. The people begin bringing their offerings each morning.
And they keep coming.
Eventually, the craftspeople have to stop working, find Moses, and tell him that the people are bringing “much more than enough” to complete what God has asked them to do. Moses must actually restrain the people from giving because the community has already supplied more than the work requires.
Apparently, this was before digital storage. They could not simply purchase more cloud space. Sorry—I couldn’t help myself.
But there is something here that I cannot stop thinking about.
What is better than enough?
Much more.
The problem with “enough”
Many of us spend our lives trying to make sure we have enough.
Enough money.
Enough time.
Enough energy.
Enough knowledge.
Enough security.
Enough left over to help someone else.
This desire is understandable. Some of us have experienced real scarcity, instability, or loss. We know what it is like not to have enough, and Scripture does not ask us to pretend that deprivation is good.
But fear can quietly convince us that “enough” is always somewhere beyond us. We accumulate, protect, and postpone because we are never quite certain that what we have—or who we are—will be sufficient.
The story in Exodus offers another possibility.
The people do not manufacture abundance out of nothing. Nor is this a promise that faithful people will always possess more money or material goods than they need.
Something else is happening.
God gives skill. Hearts are stirred. People respond freely. Gifts begin to circulate. Craftspeople contribute their abilities. A community gathers around a shared purpose. What any one person possesses becomes part of something no individual could create alone.
The result is not merely enough.
It is much more than enough.
An abundance that moves
This is what I mean by participating in the larger creativity of God.
Creativity is not simply an individual producing an impressive object or an original idea. In Exodus, creativity becomes communal participation in the work of God. People contribute materials, skill, wisdom, attention, and willingness. Their gifts begin moving toward one another and toward a shared purpose.
We might call this an economy of abundance—but not an economy of endless accumulation.
It is an abundance that moves.
In Luke 9, Jesus sends his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God and participate in his work of healing. Later in the same chapter, a hungry crowd gathers. The disciples see only what they lack: they have five loaves, two fish, and thousands of people to feed.
Jesus receives what is available, blesses it, and places it back into the disciples’ hands to share.
Everyone eats.
And there are leftovers.
Again, the point is not that following Jesus guarantees material excess. The deeper claim of the Christian story is that sufficiency in Christ exceeds the kinds of fullness the world teaches us to pursue.
Christ offers more than accumulation: presence, belonging, reconciliation, purpose, and participation in the life of God.
This abundance is received freely—and then given freely.
What might be waiting in your hands?
Wherever you find yourself spiritually, I invite you to sit with a few questions this week:
- What am I holding tightly because I am afraid there will not be enough?
- What gift, skill, relationship, or resource might become more when it enters a shared work?
- Where might abundance already be present, waiting to be noticed and released?
For those who pray, you might ask God to show you what has been entrusted to you.
For those who are uncertain what they believe, perhaps simply pay attention: Where do generosity, creativity, and shared purpose produce something that none of the participants could have generated alone?
And for those who have heard religious language about “abundance” used to deny real suffering or pressure people into giving, please hear this clearly: this is not an invitation to ignore scarcity or give recklessly. It is an invitation to imagine a life in which fear does not have the final word.
For all of us engaged in demanding work
Many of us are carrying ministries, organizations, research, families, creative callings, and responsibilities that others may never see.
Some are tired.
Some are building something that does not yet have a name.
Some are wondering whether their work matters—or whether they have enough to continue.
For all of us: let’s not give up. Our labor is not in vain.
I am praying for you and standing with you. And the most important claim I can offer is not that everything will become easy. It is that the Christ—who is Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth—is with us…
Which, I suppose, is much more than enough.
Learning together
This conviction is also why I am creating learning programs and spaces through the Order of Bezalel.
Working together in association with Kairos University, we offer:
The Order of Bezalel Transformation Catalyst, designed for those called to initiate and steward systemic or structural change in their contexts. A central practice is “balcony time”: creating the perspective, relationships, rhythm, and environment needed to step back, discern what is happening, recalibrate, and redeploy faithfully.
The Order of Bezalel Research Scholar & Practitioner, which helps participants develop a grounded research methodology for studying and addressing an issue through a theology of creativity—creatio Dei.
These opportunities are shaped around learner-centered, competency-based theological formation. The emphasis is not simply on acquiring more information, but on integrating learning, discipleship, context, and action.
Other Order of Bezalel learning opportunities include:
The OB Covenant Creativity Primer, for those interested in a renewed understanding and practice of what it means to be creative—to be called, appointed, and charged to own and lead our creativity.
OB 30-Day Covenant Onboarding, a learn-by-doing process that helps a church, organization, or community mobilize over thirty days. The process engages the “whole brain” of the community so that people can jointly and joyfully participate in the mutuality of mission.
You can explore these programs and the larger vision of the Order of Bezalel on our provisional website.
Let’s stay connected
If you would like to receive future reflections on creativity, faith, formation, leadership, and participation in God’s work, please subscribe.
I would also love to hear your thoughts about any part of this reflection or the learning opportunities above. Questions, comments, uncertainties, disagreements—they are all welcome. It would be great to connect.
If something here resonates with what you are carrying, reply to this email or contact me at uday@udaybalasundaram.com. We can begin with a conversation—no pressure and no assumption that you already know which path, if any, is right for you.
And if someone came to mind as you read this, please consider forwarding it to them and inviting them to subscribe.
I hope and pray that you have a beautiful week and weekend in everything you are carrying.
With hope,
Uday
Uday Mark Balasundaram, PhD
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