Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’ (Mark 10: 28-31)

We are promised abundance. It is a paradoxial abundance, including persecutions, but abundance nonetheless.

The precondition to abundance is loss. Those who have given away will receive. Those who hunger will be filled. Mark does not give us the Sermon on the Mount, but there are echoes of it here. Those who give priority to the intent of God will experience fertility, creativity, and divinely endowed prosperity.

What are my priorities? What is low that should be high? What is first that should be last?