Category: Sharing/Giving

Accepting and Owning

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Wk. XIX, Yr. I, 16 August 2019

Joshua 24:1-13 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 19:3-12

Bangui, Ilocos Norte, 09 March 2009.

Dear God:

Do we really have a choice with you? Of course, you are not forcing us to choose you because you gave us freedom, your most wonderful gift expressing your love for us. You never impose yourself on us and, we are always free to choose you or not!

But, how can we not choose you, O God? You are the only good, the ultimate good. And you never fail to give us the best, nothing less.

Joshua addressed all the people: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I gave you a land which you had not tilled and cities which you had not built, to dwell in; you have eaten of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”

Joshua 24:2, 13

Problem with us, Lord, is our failure to accept and own your gifts. We keep on looking for something else when you are giving us the very best. We always insist on what we want, on our choices we think to be good but not really good. But, because we are free, you allow us to disregard your gifts and choose something else – and still bless us!

And so we pray today that you teach us to both accept and own your gifts to us, Lord.

It is not enough that we accept gifts but we must also own them to be truly a blessing that can be shared and given to others.

Material and spiritual blessings, life lessons and life-blows, and all the other good gifts from you Lord are easy to accept but unless we own them too as ours, they get wasted.

Anything received but not owned becomes useless because it does not prosper nor grow nor mature and bear fruits. Be it our very selves, our country, our jobs, our family and friends. Everything, especially you, Lord, whom we always receive but never shared because we never truly have you in us. Let us own you, Lord! Amen.

We always have something to give

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Tuesday, 05 March 2019, Week VIII, Year I
Sirach 35:1-12///Mark 10:28-31

Sunrise at Lake of Galilee, the Holy Land.  Photo by the author, April 2017.

Lord Jesus Christ, you know very well our favorite expression in Filipino “walang wala ako” whenever we do not feel like helping somebody in need especially if it is money.

We always say it to show how poor we are, that we literally have nothing at all. And you know as we also know very well that it is not true at all.

Forgive us in professing that absolute lie for if ever we possess no wealth at all when our hands are totally empty of anything, we still have those hands to share and reach out to anyone in need.

Help us heed Ben Sirach’s admonition,

“Appear not before the Lord empty handed, for all that you offer is a fulfillment the precepts… Give to the Most High as he has given you, generously, according to your means.  For the Lord is one who always repays and he will give back to you sevenfold.” 

(Sir. 35:4, 9-10)

Let us not be like Simon Peter who sometimes feel bragging about our sacrifices and offerings for everything we have is not ours but all yours.

Amen.

From Google.