Sometimes Abundance is sitting right in front of you

​I walked into my office at Randolph-Macon College yesterday. Everything looked completely different. I guess since the students had left for summer break, my lady friends and colleagues in the counseling center decided it was the perfect time to perform our version of the extreme home makeover.

One of the ladies asked me, "what do you think?"

It looks amazing I said. I especially like how the kitchen area suddenly looks like a cozy little coffee shop. I can see myself sitting at that small wrought iron table and chairs in the corner with the inspirational wooden signs hanging above it.

Who here any longer needs to run off to a coffee shop to feel the vibe of working in a coffee shop!

"Do you want to know the best part about all of this", the center director asked me. It didn't cost a dime. We just imagined what we wanted and then started looking around the center for what we already had to pull it off.

Later, I found myself reflecting on those words. And wondering. How often do we imagine what we want in life but quickly shut down the possibility of having it because we don't think we have what we need to make it happen?

How often do we imagine creating something abundantly more beautiful in our lives but don't take even the first step toward it because we think we lack the abundance to pull it off?

How often do we start from a place of "this is what I'm going to need to make it work" and not from "this is what I have to work with?"

The center director told me, I'm glad we didn't have a budget for this. If we had, she said, we probably would have purchased a bunch of stuff that wouldn't have made the place look nearly as nice as it now looks.

There's something valuable that happens in working with what you already have. It's like a nod of gratitude to God for things we were never going to be grateful for while overlooking them thinking they weren't enough.

It's okay to want more out of your life. It's okay to want abundance. But if you're waiting for abundance to show up at your steps in the arms of the Amazon delivery person, you might be using the wrong approach to getting your abundance.

Sometimes abundance looks like the time I already have but waste on something other than pursuing my abundant dream.

Sometimes abundance looks like the relationship I have and not on one I imagine will be abundantly better.

Sometimes abundance looks like the old lamp in the attic and not the one I can't afford at the local home improvement store.

Sometimes the most abundant feeling of all is standing back looking at the abundance we create out of what could have felt like I don't have nearly enough.

Maybe one of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is "not enough". And quite a devastating lie at that. Because nothing prevents abundance in our lives more than not looking for and finding the abundance that's sitting right in front of us.

A lot of us have far more abundant lives that we realize. Discovering them starts with wondering, what do I already have?

Dream today.

Then look around and see what you already have that will help you chase that dream.

Then chase it. All the way to abundance.