Ordinary Time

Pause

Satisfied

Thriving

Filled Full

Abundant

Goodness

Pure Joy

More Than Enough

You Won’t Lack a Thing

These words, pulled from our readings for this week, describe life as God intended. A life overflowing with all the good things God longs to give us.

This week of Thanksgiving, let’s open our eyes to notice what God has given us, open our hands to receive God’s blessing, open our hearts to receive God’s love, and open our arms to share God’s abundance with others.

Listen

You visit the earth and make it abundant, enriching it greatly by God’s stream, full of water. You provide people with grain because that is what you’ve decided. Drenching the earth’s furrows, leveling its ridges, you soften it with rain showers; you bless its growth. You crown the year with your goodness; your paths overflow with rich food. Even the desert pastures drip with it, and the hills are dressed in pure joy. The meadowlands are covered with flocks, the valleys decked out in grain— they shout for joy; they break out in song!

Psalm 65:9-13

Think

When I read today’s passage, I hear over-the-top phrases like “make it abundant,” “enriching it greatly,” “you bless its growth,” “crown with goodness,” “overflow with rich food,” “pure joy,” “decked out,” “shout for joy,” “break out in song.”  These descriptions of abundance and wealth paint such a wonderful description of the work God does in our world and in our lives. Where there is life, where there is abundance, we can know for sure that God is at work there.

While we may still struggle living in a fallen world where life can be painful and unjust, we can still trust that the work God does in our lives is mirrored in creation — the rhythms of life in the changing seasons, water springing up in dry places, filling the hungry with good food. We are co-creators with God and, as such, we are called to join the over-the-top work God is doing in our world.

Ann Whitfield Carter

Pray

God, thank you for the work you do in my life. Thank you for the work you do in the world.  Help me recognize it! When I experience the brokenness of this fallen world, help me trust that you are at work redeeming and restoring and show me how to join you in that work. Amen.

Go

Notice all you have been given and thank the Giver.

Notice God at work and thank the Giver.

Notice God beside you and thank the Giver.

Notice God inside you and thank the Giver.

Notice God in others and thank the Giver.

Notice God in nature and thank the Giver.

Notice the need around you, open your arms to share, and thank the Giver.

Notice.

Just look around where you are right now.

And thank the Giver.