Abundant Life

Finding Fulfillment Through an Abundant Life

Hello! As I sat down to write my very first blog post (an overwhelming task), I knew I wanted to write about something that ties into the idea behind Love to Live Ministries. With a tagline of “live a life you love”, I pondered what makes life lovable. That’s when it hit me: We are each searching for abundant life.

After all, we each live life, so why not live abundantly?

Abundant life is an incredibly fascinating thing that we are all pursuing on a daily basis. But what does it even mean to live abundantly? Abundant means plenty, so think of it as plenty of living. Abundant life isn’t about what we have or what we get – in other words, it’s not about riches and resources. Minimalists are some of the most fulfilled people around. Abundant living is a concept more about finding fulfillment. One thing I know about human nature: We each desire abundant life and to live lives we love.

It turns out abundant life may not be as easy to find as we might think. When we take a look at our world, there are so many unsatisfied people. Unfulfilled people are all around us, and we are all unsatisfied in some way. We each have a void we try to fill. If we can fill that void, it can lead to abundant life; it’s just a matter of figuring out what gives us a feeling of satisfaction.

As the holiday season comes to an end, people are going back to school, returning to work, and getting back into normal routines. Parties are abundant around holidays. While socializing in person is good and parties can be fun, sometimes they lead to bad decisions. I’m in high school after all, and I know some of the not-so-great events that occur at parties. People who go to a lot of parties can still feel lonely, and being the life of the party doesn’t automatically give us abundant life. It may fulfill us in the moment, but that fulfillment may not last long.

Personally, I’ve found that faith helps fill the void inside of me. I have discovered more satisfaction and fulfillment through Christ. I believe God wants the best for each of us — that He wants each of us to have abundant life.  John 10:10 states, “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” I don’t know that Jesus satisfies me, but I do believe it. I also believe that people, money, happiness, and success don’t fulfill me. Don’t get me wrong, all of those things are great, but they aren’t what fulfills and satisfies my soul.

Here’s the thing: Abundant life is an achievable undertaking. Living an abundant life we love is influenced by our attitudes, something we can control. We can influence our joy, happiness, success, and prosperity. Abundant life calls for the mentality that someone else’s gain is not your loss. It helps us cut envy and jealously out of our lives.

We have a better understanding of what makes our life abundant when we are grateful for what we have. Here are examples of two things I do:

• Every single morning when I wake up, I smile and thank God for my blessings daily because I have so much to be grateful for…and so do you.
• Every night before I go to sleep I write down a specific event that made me happy that day. Even on the worst days, I find something to write down because when we keep track of all of our blessings, we have a more positive outlook. A positive outlook on life helps us to love life more.

Here’s to living an abundant life we love as we grow into the strong people we were created to be and begin to thrive. I plan on doing plenty of living this week – how about you?

Stay tuned for next week’s blog: Be your own kind of beautiful.