I, me, mine – possessive traits we’ve inherited from a fall long ago.

Christmas has become Memas.

Birthdays are year-round now with the advent of Amazon’s swifty delivery to your doorstep with the click of a button.

I’m focused on physical issues more than I should be:

Appetite, Stuff, Comfort, Being liked

What if this quote, instead, was our contemplation:

Everything is yours, but on one infinitely important condition: that it is all given.
Given.

“But, I worked for that!” we exclaim.

If an angel interrupted our day today (like one did Mary that first time) and said, “Fear not!” What would we do?

I know I’d cling to what I thought was mine.

Only to be dismayed when the full reality set in that it was given.

The Garden was given. But, there wasn’t a fall yet. So Adam & Eve didn’t wrestle with this same temptation of possession. Not yet.

Everything was God’s, and God shared everything in the garden (apart from one tree).

Our successive generations have longed for more and raked up entire industries of self-storage centers across the land. We long (whether we know it or not) for a return to this realization that all is given. All is shared from the Creator, and all we have to do is recognize it.

Imagine how different holidays, celebrations, and work places would look if we prayed and thanked Him for sharing it all.

So keep still, and let Him do some work. This is what it means to renounce not only pleasures and possessions, but even your own self.

To say, “Thank you for everything, because without You, it is completely pointless, and the Giver is so much more beautiful than the gift itself. Hands down!”

Brian L. Tucker
Author