One Thousand Gifts

As I near the end of this book by Ann Voskamp (One Thousand Gifts) this little nugget of wisdom stood out to me.

             "Feed the hungry, help those in trouble.  Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.  The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring." (Isaiah 58:10-11)"

"It's the fundamental, lavish, radical nature of the upside-down economy of God."

"Empty to fill."

"While the Deceiver jockeys to dupe us into thinking otherwise, we who are made in the image of God, being formed into Christ's likeness, our happiness comes, too, not in the having but in the handing over.  Give your life away in exchange for many lives, give away your blessings to multiply blessings, give away so that many might increase, and do it all for the love of God.  I can bless, pour out, be broken and given in our home and the larger world and never fear that there won't be enough to give.  Eucharisteo has taught me to trust that there is always enough God.  He has no end.  He calls us to serve, and it is Him whom we serve, but He, very God, kneels down to serve us as we serve.  The servant-hearted never serve alone.  Spend the whole of your one wild and beautiful life investing in many lives, and God simply will not be outdone.  God extravagantly pays back everything we give away and exactly in the currency that is not of this world but the one we yearn for: Joy in Him." 

Spend the whole of your one wild and beautiful life investing in many lives. 

Ready.  Set.   Go!