For the past several years, I’ve gotten into the practice of choosing one word to focus on for the year. While I do some goal setting, I’ve come to love this practice of settling in on one thing for the season at hand. (You can find a few past words here, here, and here).
While we’re now nearly through February, I wanted to come here to share the word that’s been brewing in my heart since the start of the new year: abundance.
Learning from Less
I started the year with a 30 day challenge to Declutter Like a Mother. While my home still has a long way to go as far as getting rid of stuff we don’t really need, the process of clearing out the non essentials got me thinking about all of the stuff that fills my life. What do I allow to take up physical and mental space in my home and mind? Our culture often tells us that more equals better. Yet the paradox I’m seeing is that fullness, abundance, comes when we physically and mentally clear out the extraneous to make room for the best. In less, in the emptying of our selves, our stuff, our excess, we make room for life to the full.
Jesus’ parable of the Rich Fool comes to mind. We have so much that we find places and ways to get more and store more, but our souls suffer for it (Luke 12:13-21). “…one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (v.15)
What Is Taking Up Space
If one’s life doesn’t consist in the abundance of her possessions, what does it consist of? Maybe one way we find out what Jesus meant is to make the space. What physical things, what fears, what hurts can we let go of? What can we bring to Jesus and leave right there with him so it doesn’t steal another moment of the life right before us? What are the best things deserving our hearts’ attention in this current season in which we walk?
Life abundant is my desire for this year. Not a year of more, but a year of less so that I can walk in the true abundant life that Jesus himself intended for us when he offered it in John 10:10.
I designed this John 10:10 printable to keep my word right in front of me. You’re welcome to download + print a copy for your personal use (no resale or otherwise publishing, please!). Click image above to grab yours!
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I’d love to hear from you! Do you choose a word for the year? If yes, would you share it? Leave a comment below so we can cheer each other on for the season ahead. You can also find your tribe, people who’ve chosen the same word as you for 2018, right here.
linking up here
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