Spirit Daily

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God's Gives Us All Equal Gifts

 When We Recognize That, We Soar To Happiness

By Michael H. Brown

God gives everyone equal gifts, although such is rarely apparent to us. In the ways of the world, we esteem certain gifts more than others. We esteem those who speak publicly, for example, or who are in Hollywood, or are government officials. Often we look around and think everyone has more gifts than we do -- when in fact if you have the simple gift of making someone happy, if you can love with all your heart, you have the greatest gift of all.

This is important! You may be a receptionist, gifted with the ability to smile. Do you realize how important this is? A "simple" smile may turn around a person's entire day -- and lead to a chain reaction. To make someone happy or even feel just a little better is a great gift -- and more than the vast majority of famous, "gifted" people can lay claim to.

Are you good at taking care of kids? This is important to God. Do you have the gift of generosity? Or kindness? Or patience? Do you have the gift of humility, or mechanical ability, or uncomplaining housework?

These are real gifts that are as or more important to God as the more obvious gifts we see displayed on television.

Don't undersell yourself: what you do in your home may be of more significance to God than anything you see this weekend in the public arena. God loves the simple and hidden and if he has kept you that way, it is a sign of His favor. How strange it is that after 2,000 years we still don't get this! Christ paid very little attention to the elite of His day. He was with the common folk. He was with those who suffered.

Especially He was and is with those who love, which is the greatest gift of all. If you can love, if you can smile, you are close to Him and a gifted person indeed. When we love, we have access to the truth. The more we love, the more clearly we see; the more access we have to the truth; the more completely do we obtain a perspective.

In this era when so many people hate -- when talk radio and TV shows are full of people denouncing one another, when it is fashionable to dislike people, and to criticize -- the gift of love soars above all others. When we love, we enter into a closer relationship with God, and when we do that, notes Mother Nadine Brown, a well-known nun in Nebraska, "it's like we become so 'one' with Him that He shares His mind with us, He shares His heart, He shares His Light, He shares His mother, He shares His angels, He shares His everything."

Who could have more of a gift than that?

 [Resources: Mother Nadine's latest tape set is Principalities and Powers, available in our bookstore]