Why do some people seem to live abundantly while others, with very similar circumstances, just don’t? You’ll meet two people with roughly the same job, the same income, the same family setup, and one of them is overflowing with energy, generosity and life, while the other is anxious, scarce, and quietly diminished. What’s the actual difference?
I think part of the answer is that we’ve forgotten what abundance was meant to mean in the first place.
To get there properly, you have to go right back to the beginning. The Bible offers some surprising insight on this, regardless of where you sit on faith.
Defining the words first
Two definitions worth holding side by side.
- Abundance. Present in great quantity. More than adequate. Over-sufficient. Well supplied. Abounding.
- Success. The favourable conclusion of an effort. The accomplishment of one’s goals. The attainment of wealth, position, or honour.
Most modern conversations about success skip past abundance entirely and head straight for the wealth and position part. Worth asking which of those two ideas you’re actually pursuing.
The original commission
Here’s the thing most people don’t notice. Abundance and success aren’t a modern self-help invention. They’re some of the very first things God said to humanity.
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over… every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
This isn’t a casual line. It’s a commissioning. Five distinct words, each pointing to something specific.
- Fruitful. Producing well. Bearing what is good and useful. A life that yields rather than just consumes.
- Multiply. Growing. Increasing. Not just sustaining what’s there, but expanding it.
- Fill the earth. Becoming a meaningful presence. Pervading the spaces you’re in.
- Subdue. Bringing under control. Ordering chaos. Making the wild useful.
- Dominion. Stewardship and authority. The right and the responsibility to govern well.
Read together, that’s an abundance package. A blueprint for a life of generative, generational impact, given to humanity at the very start.
We weren’t designed to scrape by. We were designed to thrive, and to help everything around us thrive.
The bigger picture
I’ve always been fascinated by astronomy. The scale of the universe, the deep time of it, the strange physics that holds everything together. My faith doesn’t compete with any of that. It actually helps me make sense of it.
The opening lines of Genesis are doing something extraordinary in just a handful of words.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Ten words. Three frameworks for everything that exists.
- Time (“In the beginning”) — past, present and future. The framework that answers when.
- Space (“the heavens”) — length, width and height. The framework that answers where.
- Matter (“the earth”) — gas, liquid and solid. The framework that answers what.
Time, space and matter, the three things every physicist will tell you make up the structure of the universe, are right there in the opening sentence. Not as a textbook. As a poem. But the architecture is unmistakable.
Whoever wrote that line had an instinct for the design.
The question Genesis doesn’t answer on its own
Time, space and matter answer when, where and what. They don’t answer why. That’s the question every human eventually arrives at, often late at night, often unprompted, and it’s not a question physics is built to handle.
I believe we’re physical, intellectual, emotional and social beings. I also believe we’re spiritual beings. Since the very start of human history, people have been reaching for something beyond themselves, and at the same time, the divine has been reaching back. The story of Jesus, for me, is the meeting point of those two reaches. The answer to the why.
That’s also where abundance starts making sense as more than a slogan. It isn’t about how much you have. It’s about who you are, what you produce, who you bless, and what you leave behind.
One last thought
We were never designed to live small. The first words spoken into humanity were instructions to grow, to bear fruit, to fill the spaces we’re in, to steward well. That commission still stands.
If your life feels scarce right now, the answer probably isn’t more stuff. It’s a return to the original design.
So which of those five (fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, dominion) is most alive in your life right now, and which one have you been quietly neglecting?