Why God and Life Owe Us Nothing

Inheritances are often the cause of much conflict within families – for the perceptions of injustice in the bequeathing of ‘riches’ unfairly. Indeed, some of the most childish and selfish behaviours come extant the person who expects more than they are given!

There is a good reason why nobody – nor God or life – owes us anything.

We are capable. We have the capacity to learn. Growth is our implicit motive and our innate bearing. And it is our own silly fault if we won’t take what we observe and what we experience into consideration for how we will live our lives.

Can we expect any sort of inheritance? No, it’s a gift. And there are a great many gifts that we ‘inherit’ for the pure fact we are alive. God gifts everyone a vast suite of passions, abilities, experiences, and indeed our unique personality is its own gift. If we take our gifts for granted – and we all tend to do just that at least minimally – then we have only ourselves to blame.

If we prefer sloth over diligence we will make nothing of the opportunities we are given to learn and grow and succeed. If anger becomes us rather than patient grace, we will have stumbling blocks as barriers everywhere; everywhere we will be frustrated. But if we apply kindness instead of greed, or self-control instead of lust, or asceticism instead of gluttony, the Lord himself will teach us the very things we can learn that we can apply to the good living of life.

It’s up to us. Every day of our lives we have fresh opportunities to plan our days and seek God to bless them; to commit to a life of diligent discernment and wisdom.

No one can do for us the work God sets in our path as opportunities.

Life rewards the person who plans with care how they will grasp the opportunities as they come. And the reward must be tenfold for the person who is content with their lot.

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We are owed nothing because God gave us all when we owed everything.

The outworking of this grace we may enjoy is the sheer thrill of living and breathing in a life where we may make known the Name of the Lord.

The more we expect from God and life, the less contentment we will experience. We can desire God or money – not both.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.