Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias
Brief poetic meditations on the great Christian and Biblical themes by writer and blogger, Anita Mathias. I am currently meditating through the Gospel of Matthew, a meditation a week.
Scripts on Anitamathias.com
Please check out my memoir, Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk (and widely available internationally).
Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias
Using God's Gift of our Talents: A Pathway to Joy and Abundance
Jesus, in his Parable of the Talents, vividly illustrates how
human life and God’s kingdom work. Our life is a story we
co-write with God, who hands us plot outlines: geography,
gender, genetics, socio-economic position, creativity, health,
personality, temperament, as well as our unique, innate gifts.
God, considering our abilities, assigns us niches in his
ecosystem, prominent vocations, or quieter ones. But
God is kind to all, lavishing on us life itself, nature, sunshine,
sleep, the joy of movement, and human kindness. As well
as individual gifts! We each have 600 to 700 talents–
Rick Warren cites research! –most of which we never use.
Our vocations are a test, and our happiness and biography
pivot on how we use our gifts. Those who rarely squander
time but invest in their talents lead ever-bigger lives. Their
gifting and influence expands exponentially. They spot and
mine hidden opportunities, and experience success,
financially, too; an always-interesting life, and the exhilaration
of achieving their goals with good work which blesses many.
Some, though, do not nurture their talents, feeling resentful
and defeated as they side-eye those with five times their assets
of family, education, charisma, connections, capital, time,
intelligence, good looks or good sense. Fearing their work may
come to nothing, they attempt little, leading grudging, lazy
lives. Their talents, unused, wither, creating a vacuum for the
hard-working to shine. This slothfulness leads to loneliness,
sadness, and judgement, while the gifts of the diligent multiply.
To savour the excitement of living, we need eyes bright
with bounce-out-of-bed purpose—and the gift of purpose
has been given to us: to focus our lives on excellent work
with our gifts, great or small. This delivers us from
wasting our precious lives on triviality. It rescues us from
a black hole of addictions to success, money, fame,
or phones. It is the pathway to happiness and abundance.
And, on any day, during any decade of our lives, we can
start revising them, and rewrite a beautiful new story.
And though we may be well, well behind those who have
steadfastly used their abilities, if we now assess what we
can do with our current strength and energy, which changes
as we do, and then nourish our neglected gifts, starting
with those which most make our hearts sing, those talents
will blossom, filling the rest of our lives with aliveness,
new interests, and new opportunities to be a blessing to
the world which God so loves. And, in God’s kindness,
our five loaves may yet feed five thou
My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA
Blog: anitamathias.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/
Twitter : anitamathias1
My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK
Using God’s Gift of Our Talents: A Pathway to Joy and Abundance
Jesus, in his Parable of the Talents, vividly illustrates how
human life and God’s kingdom work. Our life is a story we
co-write with God, who hands us plot outlines: geography,
gender, genetics, socio-economic position, creativity, health,
personality, temperament, as well as our unique, innate gifts.
God, considering our abilities, assigns us varying niches in
his ecosystem, prominent vocations, or quieter ones. But
God is kind to all, lavishing on us life itself, nature, birds,
sunshine, sleep, the joy of movement, and human kindness.
As well as individual gifts! We each have 600 to 700 talents–
Rick Warren cites research! –most of which we never use.
Our vocations are a test, and our happiness and biography
pivot on how we use our gifts. Those who rarely squander
time but invest in their talents lead ever-bigger lives. Their
gifting and influence expands exponentially. They spot and
mine hidden opportunities, and experience relative success,
financially, too; an always-interesting life, and the exhilaration
of achieving their goals with good work which blesses many.
Some, though, do not nurture their talents, feeling resentful
and defeated as they side-eye those with five times their assets
of family, education, charisma, connections, capital, time, energy
intelligence, good looks or good sense. Fearing their work may
come to nothing, they attempt little, leading grudging, lazy
lives. Their talents, unused, wither, creating a vacuum for the
hard-working to shine. This slothfulness leads to loneliness,
sadness, and judgement, while the gifts of the diligent multiply.
To savour the excitement of living, we need eyes bright
with bounce-out-of-bed purpose—and the gift of purpose
has been given to us: to focus our lives on excellent work
with our talents, great or small. This delivers us from
wasting our precious lives on triviality. It rescues us from
a black hole of addictions to success, money, fame, food,
or phones. It is the pathway to happiness and abundance.
And, on any day, during any decade of our lives, we can
start revising them, and rewrite a beautiful new story.
And though we may be well, well behind those who have
steadfastly used their abilities, if we now assess what we
can do with our current strength and energy, which changes
as we do, and then nourish our neglected gifts, starting
with those which most make our hearts sing, those talents
will blossom, filling the rest of our lives with aliveness,
new interests, and new opportunities to be a blessing to
the world which God so loves. And, in God’s kindness,
our five loaves may yet feed five thousand. May it be so!