what i learned about abundance in 2019.
My word for the year was “abundance.” I didn’t used to be someone who had a word for the year because, how do you even know what the word is? But then I became someone who started paying attention and when the same word keeps popping up, I take notice and I start looking for it. Tracking it down. Finding it in places I didn’t know it could be.
The thing about having a word for the year, I think, is that it’s less about declaring what the year will be and more about learning what it means so you can keep it and carry it with you. It speaks over you, sure. But even more, it equips you. As 2019 comes to a close, my “year of abundance” isn’t ending. I just have a better understanding of what it is and how to recognize it as I step into 2020.
Abundance is such an exciting word, isn’t it? I remember realizing that’s what it was toward the end of last year (technically, I start to notice a shift around my birthday in October) and when I told my sister about it, she gave me the side-eye for the way it seemed greater than her word of “contentment.” But honestly, I was also giving it the side-eye because I knew this word would equip and strengthen me and that doesn’t come without exercise and stretching and reaching outside my comfort zone and have you met me?
Here’s the thing: abundance is what you think it is. It’s the above and beyond. The more-than-you-can-ask-think-or-imagine. The life-to-the-full that Jesus came to give us. But what does that actually look like? Why does it feel like I don’t have it? These are the questions I walked into 2019 with.
It took reading Ann Voskamp’s “The Way of Abundance” devotional twice (once during the first 60 days of the year and again during the last 60 days of the year) and a year full of pieces to get it. And now I can’t unsee it, and I want to know why no one talks about this part. Because do you know what I learned about abundance? It’s not just received, it’s created. And do you know how abundance is created? I’ll tell you. By breaking and giving.
Needless to say, I stopped wondering why I couldn’t seem to grab onto the abundant life pretty quickly. Being broken is what I like to avoid at all costs. Because it’s uncomfortable, but also because I used to equate brokenness with failure. It turns out, being broken doesn’t mean I’ve failed. It actually means I have the capacity for abundance.
I don’t know why it didn’t take a little sooner, considering it’s all over scripture – scripture I’ve been reading and have been taught since before I can even remember.
Jesus feeds the five thousand, not by bringing an abundance of food but by seeing it in a few loaves of bread and some fish. He breaks it and gives it away. In the end, there is a tangible abundance: twelve baskets leftover.
The woman with the tiny bit of oil? She poured it out into as many jars as she had and the oil only stopped flowing when she stopped pouring because she ran out of jars. Abundance.
A single seed produces an abundance (a harvest) when it’s given away (planted) and given space to break open and grow. This is in scripture, but it’s also just basic science – and all the more reason to be puzzled that it took 30 years for me to learn where abundance comes from.
But it’s not just things, like fruit or oil or bread – or money or cars or job opportunities. It’s intangible things, like peace and joy and love and patience and life.
When you want an abundance of a thing, you let that thing be broken and given.
You hold on by letting go. It doesn’t sound like it makes sense until I see it in the small moments. When I want peace but give a frustrated sigh as I sit in traffic. Or when I want love but give a wall for others to climb over. Or when I want patience but I give words that speak of hurrying. Or when I want rest but give all my time to the hustle.
Holly Furtick once put it this way: Give what you want and you’ll get what you need. Give what you want to receive. Open your hands. Let it go. Pour it out. That’s where abundance comes from.
The thing that really gets me, though, is how Jesus came to give us life, that we may have it more abundantly. And this is what He did to make that happen: the breaking and the giving of Himself. He didn’t just step down from heaven with a basket full of abundance, ready to shower us with it. He gave up His divine privileges – not clinging to how He was actually equal to God – and lowered Himself to meet us and be with us and serve us. And then? He literally broke and gave His whole self to us – by dying, and going all the way to the bottom, and then resurrecting, and going all the way to the top.
He literally gave His life to create an abundant life for us.
So, what I learned about what that means for me is how, if I want to take part in that abundant life, I have to partner with Him in it. He did the heavy-lifting, but it still requires my participation. In order to receive it, I have to co-create it. I can’t avoid brokenness and I can’t hold onto what I have with such a tight grip like it’s mine to keep.
This year of “abundance” was not an overflow of all the good things the way you might think. There was an abundance of good things, but maybe not more than any other year. I was just able to see all of it this year – because it was a year of being sharpened to cut through the noise, the facts, and the almost-truths to see the actual truth of how abundance comes from ashes. It was a year of practicing seeing my brokenness as an opportunity, seeing what I have (because I have everything I need), and seeing how I can give it away. It was a year of leaning in to the broken parts and understanding that everything I hold – the good things and the challenging things – is only mine to steward.
What I didn’t know a year ago, and what I really needed to learn, is that abundance isn’t just an overflow. It’s not just something that is handed to me that I receive and then I have more because of it. It can be, because God does shower us with grace beyond what we can even ask for, but the kingdom of God isn’t a transactional kingdom as much as it is a relational kingdom. The end goal is always for God to be with us. Sometimes it comes as favor you didn’t even ask for, but it’s always an invitation for you to step in, to do this life with Jesus, to co-create.
It really is an incredible life, but not because you have an abundance of all the things – that’s just a bonus. It is because you get to be with Jesus, you get to see Him move, and that is incredible.