abundance

Opening Prayer: Bless our God, O peoples! Give him a thunderous welcome! Didn’t he set us on the road to life? Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch? He trained us first, passed us like silver through refining fires, Brought us into hardscrabble country, pushed us to our very limit, Road-tested us inside and out, took us to hell and back; Finally he brought us to this well-watered place. (Psalm 66:8-12, The Message)

Scripture: Psalm 66:12

Journal: What has the road to abundance looked like for you in the past few weeks and months?  Where are you in the midst of the fire or the water?  What is it doing in you?  What is God doing in you?

Reflection: “You let people ride over our heads; we went through the fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” 

     If I were making a roadmap, I don’t think I’d have drawn it up quite that way.  I mean, who in their right mind would cause the road to abundance to go right through the middle of the fire and the water.  But that is exactly what you did, O God.  Somehow you knew.  Somehow you knew that in order to fully appreciate—and fully arrive at—this place called abundance, we must spend some time in the flames or the waves, or both.  Somehow they are a necessary part of the journey.  Short-cuts are not allowed.  They only make our ultimate arrival less than it would have been.  I mean, who can fully appreciate much until they have had to survive on little.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: What a strange and wonderful life this is with you, O God.  A life where the road to abundance leads through the fire and the water.  Give us the grace and the courage and the strength to reach the destination you have chosen for us.  Amen.