How God’s Abundance Might Look Like a Surprise
I had a picture in my mind of what God’s abundance would look like when it arrived. Margin in my schedule. Breathing room in the budget. A season where the demands slowed down enough that I could finally feel like I was getting ahead rather than just keeping up.
I waited for that season for a long time. And while I was waiting, I almost missed the abundance that was already present, already active, already doing exactly what Psalm 90:17 describes. It surprised me to realize it was already resting on me, establishing the work of my hands, quiet and steady and entirely unlike the dramatic version I had imagined.
God’s abundance, I’ve learned, doesn’t usually arrive with fanfare. It tends to show up in the ordinary and wait to be noticed.
What I Thought God’s Abundance Would Look Like
I think most of us carry an unconscious picture of abundance that looks a lot like excess. More than enough, visibly overflowing, impossible to miss.
And Scripture does sometimes use that kind of language. Pressed down, shaken together, running over (Luke 6:38). So it’s not wrong to expect generosity from God. But I had narrowed abundance down to a specific set of circumstances, and anything that didn’t fit that picture I was filing under “not yet.”
As a result, I completely missed that God’s abundance isn’t primarily about volume. It’s about sufficiency. The right things, in the right measure, at the right time. Enough creativity for today’s work. Enough patience for today’s homeschool hours. Enough words for the conversation that needed to happen. Enough. And in God’s economy, enough is its own kind of overflow.
Where God’s Abundance Was Hiding
Once I started looking for sufficiency instead of excess, I started finding God’s abundance in places I had been overlooking entirely.
In the manuscript chapter that finally came together after weeks of feeling stuck. In the moment a lesson clicked for one of my kids and I got to watch understanding land on their face. In the unexpected email from a reader who said a post, blog, or book had reached them at exactly the right moment.
None of those felt like abundance when I was waiting for margin and breathing room. But looking back, they were. They were God establishing the work of my hands in ways I hadn’t thought to ask for, answering a prayer I was praying with provisions I hadn’t thought to name.
Receiving God’s Abundance With Open Hands
FAVOR asks us this month how we steward what God entrusts, and receiving is part of stewardship. Recognizing God’s abundance when it arrives, even when it arrives quietly, is itself an act of faithful tending.
Psalm 90:17 is a prayer worth praying slowly: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands.” Rest. Establish. Both of those words are unhurried. Both of them suggest a God who is working steadily, purposefully, in ways that don’t always make the front page of your day but are shaping something real underneath it.
God’s abundance is already resting. The question is whether we’re paying attention.
Join the Conversation
Where have you been waiting for abundance to arrive in a form you expected — and where might it already be present in a form you’ve been overlooking?
Take a few minutes to journal or record a voice memo finishing this: “I’ve been waiting for God’s abundance to look like _____, but when I look more closely, I can already see it in _____.” Let that recognition be today’s prayer of gratitude.
