What is your most valuable resource?
My father told me a story to help answer this question.
In one of the aboriginal societies, there is a rite of passage that youth passing into adulthood perform. The rite requires that they search their environment and bring back the most valuable thing they can find. The initiates go through the woods, climb mountains, search their surroundings, and eventually bring back their most valuable resource. Often, they return with gold, silver, or diamonds.
On one occasion, a youth did not bring back a natural resource. When the initiate returned to the elders, his hand was closed in a fist. Nothing was in it when he opened his hand to show what he brought back. The elders were puzzled by this and asked him to explain. In response, the young man said that the most valuable resource in the world is not gold, silver, diamonds, or anything of the sort. Instead, he told his elders that the most treasured resource is an idea.
When we say that God’s abundance is infinite, it's because ideas are limitless. We can’t see them, but they are all around us and available to anyone.
Often, when we experience a sense of lack or limitation, it's because we live in a world too small. We can rise above any sense of restriction by expanding our world, and we expand our world when we are receptive to a new idea.
An excellent illustration of this comes through the story of Angela Logan. Ms. Logan was a 55-year-old part-time actress and divorced mother of three facing losing her home. A string of unforeseeable events, including a mishandled construction job of her house and the sudden closure of her talent agencies, left her unable to pay her mortgage. As she sought to solve her dilemma, Angela remembered that she grew up baking cakes with her grandmother. Her grandmother had a wonderful recipe for moist apple cakes.
She had the idea of taking her grandmother's moist apple cake recipe, baking her version, and selling that rendition. Since the purpose of the sales was to save her house, she called the dessert Mortgage Apple Cakes.
Angela Logan told her friends and colleagues what was happening and asked them to buy a cake. People enthusiastically responded. Her story appeared in a local newspaper, and television stations around the country aired it.
Suddenly, her apple cakes went national. It became more than what she could handle in her home kitchen. The news of Logan's efforts eventually reached the officials at one of the local Hilton chains, and they offered her the use of their commercial kitchen.
Angela saved her home from foreclosure and Bake Me a Wish, a New York cake delivery outfit, took over production. Angela now donates a percentage of her profits to an agency that helps others solve financial challenges.
This series of events came about because Angela Logan was willing to capture an idea and was courageous enough to turn it into a reality.
A sea of ideas surrounds us. When we allow these ideas to come through us, we find there is always an answer to what looks like a problem.
Ideas are the source of true abundance.
Peace and Blessings,
James
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