The vision of the land of abundance…
Living a life of abundance has been and still is the goal of my life!
My family wasn’t poor by most accounts but I remember many times when money was extra tight. My dad working two jobs to make ends meet, and everything that goes with wanting to get ahead and feeling like it is just outside of your reach.
I found encouragement from a passage in Psalms that I read as a teenager. The passage burned itself in my thoughts and heart, and to this day it still is a lighthouse that guides me through times of stress or the seeming season of scarcity. It affected me to the point that in school from about the 9th grade on, I wrote Psalms 1:3 on every book I bought, every paper I ever turned in, and anything else I could find to remind me of the promise of living in a place where abundance is the norm… not the exception.
Psalms 1:3 says, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
Abundance in life is to be compared to this tree.
Not just any tree but one that is planted. Stationary. Fixed. Protected. Flourishing.
And this tree is in that fixed place by streams of water. The most needed element for this tree to grow is a place where the tree can always draw from the water of a constantly flowing stream. Always in a place where nourishment comes. Never in the place of dryness or a dessert. Not a place of hunger, but a place where the desire to be filled is always at hand. This stream again is constantly flowing. Not stagnant. No pollution. But fresh, flowing, water.
One translation of the Bible (The Message) says this tree bear fruit every month. Never a season where there is a famine. Never a time when the leaves and fruit are failing. The leaves are growing and providing, and in turn, the fruit of harvest is always at hand. Every month. Every season.
The person, who is like that tree, prospers in ALL THAT HE DOES!
How could you not be like that tree when you are placed, planted, fed, nourished, protected, bearing fruit, and always prospering in all that you do?
Why would anyone want to live any other way?
The sad thing is many choose to live not like this tree, but a life of scarcity and dryness.
The good thing is this life is ALWAYS AVAILABLE to anyone who wants it. So take it!