Gifts Day 2: When We Share Everyone Has Enough by Steve McAlilly

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together, running over, will be put in your lap;
​for the measure you give you will be the measure you get back.
                                                                                                                        – Luke 6:38

The Bible is full of spiritual truths that Christians depend on—ways the world just works, when it works. One of those for me is that truth expressed in today’s verse. When we give we receive. 

I have noticed that generous people put their faith in this truth. They have open hands and hearts, and their lives are filled with joy. I have also noticed that people who go through life with a clinched fist, hanging tightly onto “what is theirs,” are some of the most miserable people I have known. It is certain that our motivation for giving should not be so that we receive, but so that we respond to needs in the world. 

Perhaps what we receive in “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over” is the joy and contentment so many with generous hearts and spirits seem to have.

A Franciscan Nun, Ilia Delio, said, “God is radically involved with the world, empowering the world toward fullness in love, but God is unable to bring about this fullness without the cooperation of humans.” Sharing our gifts helps bring about that fullness in love. And the truth is that when we share in love, everyone has more than enough. Running over!

PRAYER: Our Father, help us to have the faith and courage to trust your truths, so that we are used by you to bring love, joy and contentment to the world and all have more than enough.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Opening our hands with gifts also opens them to receive God’s blessings.

written by Steve McAlilly

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