Ann Voskamp - The Way of Abundance: A 60-Day Journey into a Deeply Meaningful Life

ALSO BY ANN VOSKAMP

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The Broken Way Study Guide with DVD

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Selections from One Thousand Gifts:

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One Thousand Gifts Study Guide with DVD

The Greatest Gift:

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Unwrapping the Greatest Gift:

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ZONDERVAN

The Way of Abundance

Copyright 2018 by Ann Morton Voskamp

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Epub Edition February 2018 ISBN 9780310351290

ISBN 978-0-310-35267-9 (international trade paper edition)

ISBN 978-0-310-35204-4 (audio)

ISBN 978-0-310-35129-0 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Voskamp, Ann, 1973- author.

Title: The way of abundance : a 60-day journey into a deeply meaningful life / Ann Voskamp.

Description: Grand Rapids : Zondervan, [2018]

Identifiers: LCCN 2017047623 | ISBN 9780310350316 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Devotional exercises. | Christian life.

Classification: LCC BV4832.3 .V69 2018 | DDC 248.8/6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017047623

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked CSB are taken from the Christian Standard Bible, Copyright 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible and CSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from King James Version. Public domain.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

The names and details of some individuals depicted here have been changed to protect anonymity.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with William K. Jensen Literary Agency, 119 Bampton Court, Eugene, Oregon 97404.

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover photography: Mary Anne Morgan

Author photo: Hope Voskamp

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

First printing January 2018 / Printed in the United States of America

To my beautiful mama, Linda

whose name actually means beautiful

because God knew right from the

beginning who you would be.

CONTENTS

1. PART ONE:
   How Can the Brokenhearted Keep Going?
2. PART TWO:
   How Do We Live Like the Brokenhearted, Cruciform Christ?
3. PART THREE:
   How Do You Let Your Broken Heart Receive?
4. PART FOUR:
   How Can the Brokenhearted Find Real Communion?
5. PART FIVE:
   How Can the Brokenhearted Release Control?
6. PART SIX:
   How Do the Brokenhearted Get to Love?

Men of the breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to or understood by common men. They habitually spoke with spiritual authority. They had been in the Presence of God and they reported what they saw there.

A. W. TOZER, THE PURSUIT OF GOD

T here are a million stars, a trillion, flung across the summer sky, a million more than any of us can count.

The night sky can seem close over the farm.

There are nights over our fields that it feels like we could grab the Big Dipper itself and ladle up light. There are nights that can feel bathed in abundant light.

When the Perseid meteor shower falls in mid-August, we spread blankets out by the edge of the stilled and drowsing wheat fields and watch for streaming fireballs of light to fall into our waiting hope. Some nights we just sit at the edge of the farm porch, sit at the edge of all the things that have gone wrong in a day, and watch the courage of stars, blazing brave in the dark.

Sitting together under a blanket of stars, one of the kids muttered it, What are stars made of? Where does all that light come from?

I tried to remember what Id read in one of my old science textbooks, tried to explain it slowly so theyd listen, remember, what stars really are.

Stars are made from explosions and collisions of elements. Stars are made from a breaking at their center. Which allows for a process called nuclear fusion, a process that releases an enormous amount of energy, of light.

I murmur it again, because how have I never seen the stars quite like that? Stars are made from a continuous breaking. And its the gravitational friction of this breaking that makes them bright.

Breakingthen blazing.

This is always the abundant way of the universe.

Brokenness multiplies into abundance. This seems impossibleunlikely. And this is the unfailing way of God. Multiplication happens out of brokenness. And the sum is abundant life.

Stars are the scars of the skymade into the light of the world.

What would happen if the scars you carry are what God uses to carry Christ to a scarred and broken world?

Weak is the real strong.

Brokenness is the real abundance.

Breakingthen blazing.

Dyingthen rising.

Trust the abundant ways of the universe, the ways of Almighty God.

Scars are but stars that let His light burn through the night. Stars and scars are signs that point The Way.

I never told the kids that the brightest stars are known as supernovas. That when a star dies, it sends out a massive shock wave, that the death of the star is known as a supernova explosion, appearing in the night sky many times brighter than the surrounding stars.

Die to pride, die to self, die to agendas, die to comfort, die to easeand your life explodes with abundant life. Unexpectedly, the secret to abundance is not about selfbut about