We see change all around us.  Each year we watch as one season fades and another grows.  Change is natural and normal.  Jesus said in the Gospel of John that he came to give us life – abundant life. When abundance shrinks from our lives or our souls feel depleted of joy, it may be that we are being offered an invitation to move toward a change. 

Yet, even when we see a need for change, we often scurry around insisting that everything is fine just as it is.  We can find ourselves staying in relationships, jobs, careers, houses, geographical locations that no longer lead us to growth or fill us with abundance simply because we fear what change will require.  We worry that we might end up with something less attractive than what we have now.  Oftentimes we are unwilling to embrace change  because we fear the unknown.  In other words, it's not really change we avoid, but the results of the change that lie hidden in darkness – unavailable to us. 

We ask ourselves,  “What if the change is not what we thought it would be?  What if we're unhappy in the new situation?  What if we miss our old situation?  What if the new situation is even worse than the old?”  Of course, we might just as easily ask ourselves other questions:  “What if the change is all we thought it would be and more?  What if we're overjoyed in the changed situation?  What if we finally feel free from the constraints of our old situation?  What if the new situation is quantitatively and qualitatively superior to the old?” If we were to ask ourselves these questions, we might find ourselves leaping toward change with excited anticipation. We might find ourselves going from the barrenness of winter to the fulsomeness of summer. In the risk of embracing something new, we just might find our life and soul infused with grace, with joy, with abundance.  We just might detect a smiling glance descending on us from heaven.

Tip to try:  Take your abundance temperature.  Each evening before you go to sleep, close your eyes and do a scan of your heart and soul.  Notice where there are pockets of fullness, and where it feels as if there are wrinkles of dryness.  Note both in your journal.  At the end of the week, revisit what you have written to see if God is inviting you into change.