Celebrating Abundance

My Journal - Agatha Nolen

I’ve joined a group that is studying Celebrating Abundance for Advent. It is a book of devotions from Walter Brueggemann. Tuesday’s reading for the first week of Advent is titled, “Celebrating the New Abundance”.

Last week I had been contemplating how I wanted to live more out of sufficiency (having enough) rather than the abundance of having more than I need.

The devotion for Tuesday this week has added a new angle to my thinking. Walter comments, “let me tell you the news that is proclaimed at every Communion service: Jesus has turned the world into abundance. God is the gift who keeps on giving, and the people around Jesus are empowered to receive abundance and therefore to act generously.” Brueggemann continues, “He takes, he blesses, he breaks, he gives. And we are astonished about the surplus.”

I still want to live out of sufficiency. I need to do better about buying things I really don’t need, eating food when I am bored instead of hungry, and feeling like I need to be busy all the time to prove my worth. But I also need to see that Jesus gives me an abundance of truth, beauty, kindness, goodness, and love that I should never hoard but freely give away.

I’ve adapted the concluding prayer as my prayer for Advent: “God whose giving knows no end, make me a glad recipient of your generosity. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear, and a heart to remember your abundance, that I might share it with the world. Amen.”

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha