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How much is enough? Arguably, this may be one of the most relevant questions of our modern age in the Western world. If we base our evidence on the excessive consumption we see around us there is no doubt about the extraordinary buying power that exists in our world today. But is there a direct correlation between more and happier, and if so how much is enough?

Contrast that by examining happiness among the poor. My own brief experiences of working with those we might consider the poorest of the poor, mostly in Central America (as well as my own community), has offered me some insight about this question. Specifically I remember Isabel, a Honduran woman who resided in a deeply impoverished barrio community just outside the city of Tegucigalpa. For a week she and I worked side by side on a project and though we did not speak the same language we became fast friends. At the end of that week as we were saying goodbye Isabel hugged me, then handed me a sweet note written in Spanish on a small tattered card about the size of a business card. I didn’t know what it said but I understood what was meant by her kind gesture. Isabel and her companions were some of the happiest people I’ve ever met, yet they lived in conditions that are unimaginable to most of us.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, perhaps the most renowned servant of the poor in our modern age, once noted of the Western world, “I have walked at night in your streets, I have entered your homes. I have found in them more poverty than in India.” What she was referring to was not economic poverty, but poverty of the soul. So we ask ourselves, how much is enough?

To live in a place where opportunities abound for financial success is a blessing and a privilege, but what are we to do with our abundance and how much is enough? The greatest reward in my profession as a business and executive coach occurs in helping high achieving successful clients transition their focus from success to significance, from money to meaning. It is then they discover that true enrichment is not obtained by gaining but by giving. So, how much is enough? That depends. But it depends not on how much we have, rather on how much we have to give.

Do you ever get restless? I don’t mean the lie-awake-at-night-worrying type of restless, or the cabin-fever restless we all get from being confined in the house too long. I’m talking about the restlessness that occurs from the nagging urge to make a significant life change – new job or career, relocate to another town or city, downsize or upsize your home, re-educate, re-train, or retire. Such restlessness must be examined carefully and prayerfully, for it may simply be a case of frustration, stagnation or boredom. On the other hand it could signify a calling.

My friend Patrick Custer tells the story about his grandfather, a Pentecostal preacher who for many years served as pastor of the largest Pentecostal church in Amarillo, Texas. He and his wife lived in a nice home provided by the church, earned a respectable salary, were highly respected in the community, and generally lived a comfortable life. Then one Sunday morning my friend’s grandfather abruptly resigned for reasons of neither a bigger church, nor to retire. Rather, he and his wife sold all they had and moved into a small trailer in the poorest, most dangerous neighborhood in Amarillo where he had purchased some rundown property. There, with no prior experience in construction, he began to tear down the old dilapidated houses and lay the foundation for a new church. Along the way he somehow convinced a local lumberyard manager to donate the materials, and even more miraculously persuaded the owner of an X-rated movie theater to close down his business and give the theater seats to the church for pews. The two donors, previously strangers by the way, became the church’s first deacons.

Now when the old preacher started the project he was working alone. But soon a couple of drug addict, alcoholic types who had been watching from afar began to pitch in – then another, and another – until about fifty or so were showing up daily to help with the construction. By the time the building was completed and the X-rated theater seats installed, Patrick’s grandfather had not just built a church, but also a thriving congregation.

My friend Patrick, a highly successful businessman and entrepreneur, did not follow in his grandfather’s footsteps as a Pentecostal preacher, but he does credit him for being the most influential person in his life. Understandably so, for what he learned from him is to examine his own restlessness – which occurs from time to time – carefully and prayerfully, and if it signifies a true calling to respond boldly. It’s an inspiring story for all of us – the next time we get restless.

According to a recent interview with Steve Siebold who authored the popular book, How Rich People Think, there exists today more opportunities for people to become millionaires than any other time in history. Now for most of us that may seem to be a rather bold claim given all the negative financial news we’ve heard in the past week, including an unrelenting erosion in the housing market and a continued high rate of unemployment that shows no signs of relief.

In his interview, however – which I happened to catch on the internet – Siebold explained that it is in just such times of rapid change and economic chaos as these that new opportunities arise, and it is those creative, ambitious, entrepreneurial types clever enough to take advantage of it who stand the best chance of reaping substantial financial rewards.

Whether or not Siebold is correct in his claim only time will tell. His message, however, is worth considering. In his book, How Rich People Think for instance, which admittedly I have only scanned and not read, he observes how the middle class – meaning most of us – see money as finite, whereas rich people see money as infinite. Well of course they do we might think, they’ve got lots of it. No, his point is that it is because they see money as infinite that they became rich in the first place, not because they already are rich.

God did not create a world of scarcity, but one that is abundant in resources, which is what makes Steve Siebold’s message worth considering; for even though he uses the language of money it is not about wealth. Rather, I see his message as being about living with an attitude of abundance in all we do. For just as those who see money as infinite will be the ones most likely to become rich, and those who seize the opportunities that exist in the midst of these times of rapid change and economic chaos will become the next successful entrepreneurs, so will those who recognize and appreciate the abundance of creation enjoy a life that is rich and fulfilling. That’s what Abundant Living is all about.

Noted writer and pastor, Charles Swindoll, once became so overwhelmed by too many commitments that he fell into a state of constant irritability and was totally distracted from what was going on around him including his family. “I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day,” he recalled in his book, Stress Fractures. “Before long, things around our home started reflecting the pattern of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable. I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ‘Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’ Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, ‘Honey, you can tell me – and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.’ I’ll never forget her answer: ‘Then listen slowly.’”

Failure to listen – and listen slowly, attentively and with genuine interest and concern – may be one of the greatest deficiencies of our culture today. It is not for lack of opportunities to talk, however, for with cell phones, email, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of instant communication we have become in fact a bunch of chatter-boxes. Who’re missing are the listeners – the real listeners, that is, the ones who listen slowly as Swindoll’s daughter would say.

During a San Francisco study some years back, teenage prostitutes were being interviewed and asked this question: “Is there anything you needed most and couldn’t get?” The overwhelming response, invariably preceded by sadness and tears, was this: “What I needed most was someone to listen to me. Someone who cared enough to listen to me.”

What a generous, caring act it is to genuinely listen to another human being! And how tragic it can be when we fail to do so! “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak . . .” James says in his epistle (James 1:19); for as much as we continue to need better education to develop brilliant minds, great teachers, leaders, and experts in every field, what the world really needs is for all of us to become listeners.

For the past eighteen months or so Tee and I have been on a mission of consolidating things – our possessions that is. Not only have we cleaned out drawers, closets, and attics, but we’ve even been divesting of real estate, except for our home. And it too is about to go on the market, although we do plan to purchase another one more suitable to our current lifestyle. Our mission is not just about getting rid of unwanted junk, though. More importantly it is about letting go of unneeded stuff that distracts us from more important things. Our goal is to put our possessions in proper perspective so we can spend our lives focusing on what really matters.

So what does really matter? We all might answer that in different ways, but I’m willing to bet most of our answers would be surprisingly similar. I’m also willing to bet that few would place possessions at the top of the list of things that really matter. And the more we mature – a polite way to describe getting old – the further down the list possessions get pushed and the greater importance “what really matters” becomes, which is what motivated us to consolidate.

In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster devotes an entire chapter to what he calls “the discipline of simplicity”. In it he advises his readers to, “De-accumulate! Masses of things that are not needed complicate life,” he explains. “They must be sorted and stored and dusted and re-sorted and re-stored ad nauseam. Most of us could get rid of half our possessions without any serious sacrifice. We would do well to follow the counsel of Thoreau: ‘Simplify, simplify.’”

The point is not that possessions are necessarily bad or unimportant. We do need them to live and to live comfortably. But when we become obsessed by them to the point of being distracted from what really matters, it’s time to consolidate as we are in process of doing – to simplify.

I would challenge you to consider this week what really matters, and what might be distracting your focus from that. Do you need to “de-accumulate” and simplify? If so, join the club. We still have more to do.