Human Flourishing: From a Misunderstood Idea to a Biblical Vision of Abundant Life
THE FLOURISHING LIFE • Post 1 of 10
Human Flourishing | Jay Poland, MA, LCPC, IBCC Certified Human Flourishing Coach
For a long time, I was put off by the term human flourishing.
Depending on the context, it sounded too self-focused for my liking. Whenever I heard it, I assumed it meant “just do whatever makes you happy.” It felt like yet another way to justify self-centered living. I could think of countless conversations where someone defended their choices with the phrase, “God wouldn’t want me to be unhappy.”
That framing never sat well with me.
Scripture repeatedly calls us away from self-preoccupation and toward humility and love of others. Paul writes in Philippians 2:3–4:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” — Philippians 2:3–4
Similarly, Romans 12:3 urges sober self-assessment rather than inflated self-importance. Because of these passages, it was easy for me to avoid the word flourishing altogether. In my mind, it was synonymous with indulgence or self-justification.
A Shift in Perspective
That began to change when I started reading authors who carefully defined what they meant by flourishing.
Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, describes flourishing not as fleeting happiness but as the pinnacle of mental well-being — a holistic picture of living the good life. What stood out to me was that his work places less emphasis on what is broken and more emphasis on what is working. Rather than ignoring suffering, it asks how people can develop resilience, meaning, and virtue in the midst of it.
Time and again, I noticed a deep congruence between what Scripture encourages and what research identified as markers of a well-lived life.
Then I encountered the work of Dr. Tyler VanderWeele at Harvard — director of the Human Flourishing Program and the Global Flourishing Study. VanderWeele defines flourishing as:
“A state where all aspects of a person’s life are good, encompassing happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships, and material stability.”
That definition stopped me in my tracks.
Flourishing as Alignment with God’s Design
What I began to see was this: flourishing is not self-centered living — it is aligned living. To flourish is to live in harmony with God’s created order. The more one’s life reflects God’s intentions, the greater the sense of wholeness, purpose, and well-being.
In that sense, flourishing is not a modern invention. It is deeply biblical.
Jesus Himself said in John 10:10:
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” — John 10:10
Other translations use the word abundant. Flourishing, rightly understood, is not about chasing pleasure or avoiding discomfort. It is about living the kind of life Jesus invites us into — shaped by truth, love, sacrifice, community, and purpose.
There is an enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy through lies and deception. VanderWeele’s research gave language and depth to what Jesus had already proclaimed: God desires human lives marked by abundance — not shallow happiness, but deep, resilient well-being.
And not just for us individually. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, offers a phrase from ecology that I keep returning to: “All flourishing is mutual.” No living thing thrives in isolation. What is true of ecosystems turns out to be equally true of human lives. Flourishing is never purely a personal project — it opens outward toward others. We will come back to this thread throughout the series, because it changes everything about how we understand what abundant life actually looks like.
VanderWeele’s Six Domains of Human Flourishing
VanderWeele identifies six core domains that together form a comprehensive picture of flourishing. A life can look successful by every outward measure and still be deeply unflourishing — if it lacks meaning, virtue, real connection, or the basic material stability that makes everything else possible.
1. Happiness and Life Satisfaction
A sense of joy, contentment, and positive evaluation of one’s life — not constant pleasure, but enduring well-being.
2. Physical and Mental Health
The ability to function physically and emotionally, including resilience in the face of illness, stress, and adversity.
3. Meaning and Purpose
Having a sense that life matters — that one’s actions contribute to something larger than oneself.
4. Character and Virtue
Living with integrity, self-control, humility, generosity, and moral strength.
5. Close Social Relationships
Deep, supportive relationships marked by love, trust, and mutual commitment.
6. Financial and Material Stability
Not wealth, but the sufficiency and security that allows life to be lived without chronic anxiety over basic needs. The Lord’s Prayer includes this domain for a reason.
Four Pathways to Flourishing
VanderWeele’s research also identifies four primary pathways that consistently move people toward flourishing:
Family — Strong, stable family relationships provide belonging, formation, and emotional support.
Work — Meaningful work contributes to purpose, contribution, and dignity.
Education — Learning shapes understanding, agency, and long-term opportunity.
Religious Community — Participation in a faith community supports meaning, moral formation, service, and enduring relationships.
Why Faith Community Matters Most
I find myself in strong agreement with VanderWeele’s conclusion that connection to a faith community is likely the most significant contributor to flourishing.
Faith communities uniquely integrate all the domains. They cultivate meaning and purpose, reinforce character and virtue, foster deep relationships, provide resilience in suffering, and — when they are healthy — create the conditions for basic needs to be met together rather than carried alone. They also consistently orient people away from radical self-focus and toward love of God and neighbor.
In other words, faith communities do not merely support flourishing — they form people into the kind of individuals who can flourish, even in hardship.
When flourishing is rooted in faith, it becomes less about personal comfort and more about faithful living.
And that, I believe, is exactly the kind of abundant life Jesus came to offer.
This is the first post in The Flourishing Life, a ten-part blog series exploring what it means to truly thrive — through the lens of Scripture, research, and everyday life. New posts publish weekly.
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Next in the series: Post 2 — More Than Happy: What Flourishing Actually Feels Like
