Although 2017 had plenty of hard times and frustrations, I think overall we can look back and say it was our best year to date.
We were gone from “home” more than we weren’t, but home to us is really wherever we’re together, and exploring that space in different locations is always a valuable growing experience for our whole family.
One of our biggest shifts over the past year was in recognizing how saturated we had been in a poverty mindset.
It’s not just a financial thing, although that is certainly one aspect of it. It’s how sneakily it infiltrates every part of our life – from how we approach people and situations, to how we view our own talents, abilities, purpose.
Struggling and striving, comparison and competition – these are all rooted in separation and lack, which became ingrained in the human psyche when Adam & Eve failed to recognize and simply stand firm in their true identity.
When they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil instead of the Tree of Life, they embraced Law over Spirit, rules over relationship, doing over being… and the immediate result was fear and insecurity.
Even though we continue to choose which tree we eat from, for so long we didn’t recognize the choice because struggle has been accepted as the normal human state.
But the “curse” has been broken, the alienation has been reconciled.
The other tree is YES.
“For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” 2 Corinthians 1:20
The other tree is LIFE.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
We spent much of 2017 learning to spot where we were still eating from the tree of reason/natural law/human wisdom.
We plan to continue that paradigm shift in 2018 with our word of the year, abundance.
Some of the words Strongs uses to expound on “abundantly” from the above verse are:
- over and above, more than is necessary, superadded
- something further, more, much more than all, more plainly
- superior, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon
- pre-eminence, superiority, advantage, more eminent, more remarkable, more excellent
In the Kingdom of God there is no shortage because everything our Father is and has is already ours, just like the story of the prodigal son and his self-righteous brother, but that’s a post for another day 🙂
It just struck me how funny it sort of sounds on the surface as minimalists to be embracing abundance, but it actually fits quite well.
True abundance is discovered when you remove the unnecessary.
I guess you could say we’re just taking it to the next level – spiritual minimalism? 😉
Hello, 2018. We’re glad you’re here.