Faith Dance - Meditations about Spirituality, Faith, Religion, God, Established church, Christianity, Journals, Reflections, Meditations, FaithDance.com, Faith Dance.com, Mid-Life Crisis

Meditation 7: 1 Corinthians 4

8/25/2009 8:00:59 PM

I Corinthians 4:6-21

What do you have that you did not receive? (v. 7b)

Living a life of gratitude means living with the awareness that everything of value we possess comes from the gracious hand of God. Taking nothing for granted, we mark each day as gift and therefore try to live it as fully as we can.

The other day I was visiting someone who is declining and needing help with simple personal care. What made this person different from many others is that he lives with a sense of gratitude, and this makes all the difference in how he experiences these last months or years of his life.

Unlike many others, he isn’t bitter. He’s grateful for the life he’s had, both the blessings and the challenges. He’s grateful for the people in his life right now, family, friends and caregivers. He accepts life as it is, with its losses and gifts, and still believes it to be good.

Hearts that are turned to God in gratitude are hearts that are open to possibilities. Gratitude makes us able, even in the midst of hardships, to remain open to God’s presence, teaching and guiding us to new understandings and life.

Often it isn’t the circumstance we’re in that’s our greatest challenge. It’s our response to this circumstance that determines our quality of life: whether we’ll feel life’s unfair and be filled with bitterness and resentment against others we think have it so much better, or whether we’ll live each day fully, aware of the Life that is within us and around us and can’t be diminished, no matter what.

We may work hard to provide for ourselves, we may study and struggle to grow and gain insight, but unless we believe every step is permeated with grace, we will tend to live fearfully, worried that the good we have will be taken away by a capricious God we have trouble really trusting. We’ll compare our lives with others and either see ourselves as doing better or less than. Life becomes competition, win or lose, rather than gift and grace.

Gratitude requires that we see in God, the answer to every need we have and trust what we truly need is already being given to us. And that’s what makes it possible to live each day, receive it as it is, and know we are being taught, led and loved to life.

Teach me, God of grace, to live more fully in your light and love.