What if there was a delivery to your home every morning of everything you have ever desired. Every morning the doorbell rang, the delivery was made, but you never answered the door.
Or, you opened it by a little sliver, stuck your hand out, and grabbed the closest item and shut the door again.
Inside your home, you were busy distributing everything you have. Some days you are so tired you have nothing left to give, so all systems shut down.
The next day may be the day that you open the door a little further to the massive amount of good things that have arrived on your doorstep. Perhaps you grab enough to last you for the day and then proceed to give it all away until you are empty again.
Isn’t this what most of us do in one way or another?
One morning I was doing a meditation while listening to the ocean waves. In an attempt to keep myself from drifting away into some kind of planning mode I tried to listen and then flow, with the waves. I pretended that I was the wave. Moving to shore and pulling away.
Having lived near an ocean for many years, I had heard the ebb and flow many times. But that morning a little light bulb went on in my head as I ebbed and flowed along with the waves.
Perhaps I heard it differently that day because I was discouraged. So much giving, reaching out, sending my ships out across the ocean, and it felt as if so little had returned.
That morning though I was flowing with the rhythm of those waves. In and out. I asked myself what was the Divine telling us with this ebb and flow? All that we know is a symbol of a bigger idea, a quality of God that is always present for us.
In and out. Give and receive.
Receive. I almost let out a yip of excitement. Of course, I knew this already, don’t you? We are already provided for at every moment. It’s always been a guarantee of life. Give and Receive. “Before ye call I will answer.”
But in my discouragement, I had forgotten this basic premise of Life.
However, to get the receiving part, we have to open that door. And trust that all that we need has already been provided for us so that we can see it.
“Divine Love always has met, and always will meet, every human need.” Mary Baker Eddy.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”*
Open the door and receive.
Like our breath. We breathe in, we breathe out. If we don’t receive or breathe in again, we die.
The law of receiving in action.
Our gifts don’t always come how we expect. They don’t always look like what we want them to look.
When I was little, my parents gave us the best Christmas mornings ever. I can still recall how it felt to look down the hall and see the tree. Always an early riser, up long before dawn, I had to wait for my brother and my parents, and then my sister to get up.
So I would stare down the hall at the tree that was usually dark at night, but on Christmas morning was burning bright, overflowing with gifts for the three of us. That tree, those lights, was a promise that I was going to receive, and I was completely ready.
Some of those gifts I asked for. But there was always at least one that I had never asked for, never thought to ask for, and when I unwrapped it realized it was what I wanted more than anything.
My father and mother knew more about what I would like and need then I did. They spent their life providing for my siblings and me.
Wouldn’t the Father-Mother of all Life be doing the same? Not just on one day a year, but every day, every moment?
The abundance train filled with all that we could ever want is continuously arriving. We only have to say “yes” to take it in. Open the door the whole way and receive it.
As we get better at receiving, we will have so much more to give, without depleting ourselves.
The ocean doesn’t hoard the last intake of its wave. It gives it out again. Give and receive. Most of us understand and are very good at that giving part.
What about the receiving? Let’s be equally as good at that.
*Matthew 6 – Bible
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BECA LEWIS coaches, teaches, writes blogs and books, plays with art, and is addicted to reading. She lives in Ohio with her husband and has kids and grandkids scattered across the country.
