Monday, April 14, 2014

Gratitude's source and impact

Starter Prayer:  "God of love and justice, let me know and live that they are not separate.  Loving people will do justice, and just people will do their work with love and respect." (From Wondrous Encounters by Richard Rohr)

Sometimes it is difficult to believe the endless magnitude of God's greatest gift to each of us.  Love.  Immeasurable, unconditional love.

Yet something happens when you realize that you are not only loved by God, but that God sees you exactly as you are and loves you immeasurably just as you are.

That love,  (once you trust that it is true) sets in motion a huge swell of gratitude.  The gratitude expands in your heart and spills outward in ways that release your resources for the good of others.

Sometimes your major resource is time.  Sometimes it is a particular ability.  Sometimes it is a financial abundance.

Regardless, if you see it all as a gift from God, the response will be gratitude -- not a sense of entitlement or possessiveness.  When you trust that God is lavish in loving all, then you can't help but look at the "other" as equally beloved by God.  Stay with that, and allow yourself to ask the question, what has God given me that would relieve suffering for others?  What is with me that might be released for the sake of a more just society?

I am....grateful for the gifts.  I am grateful to be able to give from those gifts.  I trust that God's abundance is poured out for the sake of all. True?


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