As long as we have forgotten that everything we have ever been given is a gift, then we will continue to compete, compare and complain. Consequently, our hypocrisy will shine like the sun and our callous hearts will grow harder and harder.
But if we 🛑 and take big inhale of free air and start to count the blessings one by one, then we will begin to see the Truth who sets us free to be receivers and givers of this free gift of life and life’s free gifts.
And we will remember…
Everyone is alive and breathing today because someone loved us.
Everyone lives a life that we did not conjure into being and we do not sustain.
Our bodies, spirits, minds and hearts are gifts.
The earth, the sun, the moon, water, soil and air- are gifts.
All creatures great and small are gifts!
A second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month and a year are gifts!
The million processes that happen in your body every day- are gifts.
We have received grace upon grace upon grace, even in the midst of deep pain and sorrow of our own making.
We have become better people because someone forgave us. Mercy and forgiveness have cleansed and restored us time and time again.
Not one of us has gotten what we “deserve.”
We have been helped, healed and given hope over and over again.
There is no such thing as fair in the Christian economy.
Did Jesus not tell us that the first would be last and the last first?
Read the New Testament.
Jesus call us to live a life a radical generosity, mercy, love and turning of the cheek, giving of the cloak, loving your enemies and forgiving an absurd number of times.
Christians- come on- knowing the teachings of Jesus where workers are paid the same regardless of the time worked and being people who pray the Lords pray- we would not only expect unfairness in the world but we would be turning to the unfair world to give the grace, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness and help that’s been unfairly given to us to people who equally don’t deserve it.
And we are not just to radically give the things in our hearts but the money in our wallets, the bread on our tables, the clothes off our backs, the time in our days and our very lives.
“10And when the first came they supposed they would receive more; and each of them also received a denarius. 11And on receiving it they murmured against the master of the house, saying, 12‘These last ones labored one hour, and you made them equal to us, who have borne the day’s oppressiveness and the heat.’ 13But he, making rejoinder, said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unjust to you; did you not agree to a denarius with me? 14Take what is yours and go; but I wish to give to the last man what I also give to you; 15Am I not permitted to do what I wish with my own possessions? Or is your eye baleful because I am generous?’ 16Thus the last will be first and the first last.” -Jesus
DeeAnn Dean 