What Does It Mean to Flourish? A Biblical Framing of The Abundant Life

We speak often about flourishing at Odigia Global. As we begin a new year, it is important to clarify what we mean, and what we do not mean, when we use this language. The beginning of the year invites assessment. We look back on the goals we set, the lists we wrote, the vision boards we curated with care and expectation. Did I get the new car? Did I secure the promotion? Did I find romantic fulfilment? Are my family relationships finally stable and peaceful?

These are not trivial desires. Scripture does not dismiss material provision, meaningful work, or relational harmony as unimportant. Yet the danger lies not in desiring these things, but in assigning them a weight they were never meant to bear. We are prone to treat them as evidence of God’s favour, or worse, as proof that God is absent when they do not materialise.

Does God desire our good? Unequivocally, yes. But does He define flourishing by upward mobility, emotional ease, or uninterrupted relational success? Scripture suggests otherwise. When we confuse our definition of flourishing with God’s, we quietly set ourselves up for offence at God and disappointment with the Christian life.

Flourishing According to Scripture, Not Sentiment

At Odigia Global, our work centres on strengthening couples, families, and leaders. We believe deeply in the dignity of this calling. Yet we would be misleading you if we implied that God’s ultimate aim is a life of comfort, ease, or constant emotional affirmation. The Scriptures refuse such a shallow vision of the good life.

From Genesis to Revelation, suffering is not treated as an interruption to flourishing, but as one of the primary contexts in which it is formed.

Jesus Himself makes this plain. “In this world you will have trouble,” He tells His disciples in John 16:33, not as a warning of failure, but as a sober promise. The Christian life is not protected from hardship. It is shaped by it.

This is where many believers quietly struggle. We hear Jesus speak of abundant life in John 10:10, and we assume abundance must mean ease. But the word Jesus uses for life, zōē, does not refer merely to biological existence or circumstantial wellbeing. It speaks of life animated by God Himself. A quality of life rooted in communion with the Father, not in favourable conditions.

When abundance is defined as comfort, suffering feels like betrayal. When abundance is defined as union with Christ, suffering becomes a refining fire rather than a contradiction.

The Soul That Prospers

The apostle John prays, “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well” (3 John 1:2). This verse is often quoted selectively, with the emphasis placed on external prosperity rather than internal formation.

Yet John’s prayer places the soul first. The external good he desires is explicitly tethered to the flourishing of the inner life. Scripture consistently insists that outward stability without inward renewal is not success, but fragility disguised as strength.

The Greek word often translated as prosper, euodoō, carries the sense of being led along a good road. It is directional rather than circumstantial. Flourishing, biblically speaking, is about being aligned with God’s purposes, not insulated from pain.

Why Misunderstanding Flourishing Leads to Offence

When believers assume that obedience guarantees ease, disappointment is inevitable. When hardship arrives, it feels personal. God seems inattentive, or worse, unjust. This is not merely emotional confusion. It is theological misalignment.

Scripture never promises that faithfulness will shield us from loss. It promises that faithfulness will not be wasted.

Romans 8:28 does not say that all things are good, but that God works in all things for good. The good in view is defined in verse 29 as conformity to the image of Christ. God’s primary commitment is not to our comfort, but to our transformation.

This explains why Scripture speaks of suffering as productive rather than pointless. James urges believers to “consider it pure joy” when they face trials, not because pain is virtuous, but because testing produces perseverance, and perseverance matures faith (James 1:2–4). Paul echoes this in Romans 5:3–5, where suffering produces endurance, character, and hope, a hope that does not disappoint.

The irony is striking. We fear suffering because we think it will undo us, yet Scripture insists that it is often the means by which God secures us.

Flourishing in the Wilderness

Throughout the biblical narrative, God does His deepest work not on the mountaintop, but in the wilderness. Israel learns dependence not in Egypt’s abundance, but in the desert’s scarcity. David is formed not in the palace, but in obscurity and exile. Jesus Himself is led by the Spirit into the wilderness before beginning His public ministry.

Flourishing, then, is not the absence of struggle. It is the presence of God within it.

The Hebrew concept of peace, shalom, is often misunderstood as mere tranquillity. In Scripture, shalom refers to wholeness, integrity, and right ordering. A life may be externally turbulent and yet deeply whole. Another may be externally impressive and yet internally fractured.

Jesus offers peace not as escape, but as stability of soul. “My peace I give you,” He says, “not as the world gives” (John 14:27). The world gives peace by removing threats. Christ gives peace by anchoring us to Himself.

A Practical Reorientation

What does this mean for couples, parents, and leaders seeking to flourish?

It means we stop measuring God’s faithfulness by our circumstances and start measuring our lives by fruit that endures. It means asking not only, “Is my life comfortable?” but, “Is my love deeper? Is my patience growing? Is my trust in God less conditional?”

It means teaching our children not that God will make life easy, but that He will make them strong, faithful, and rooted. It means approaching marriage not as a tool for self-fulfilment, but as a means of sanctification and joy through costly love.

Most importantly, it means aligning our expectations with the cross before we expect resurrection. Scripture is clear. Glory follows suffering, not the other way around.

The Abundant Life Reclaimed

True flourishing is not fragile. It does not collapse under disappointment or unravel in grief. It is resilient because it is rooted in Christ rather than circumstance.

When we accept God’s definition of flourishing, we are freed from offence and guarded against despair. We stop demanding that life serve us and begin receiving life as the place where God meets us.

This is not a diminished vision of the good life. It is a deeper one.

And it is one that does not disappoint.