Part 3, Chapter 5
All is gift! All of our gifts, talents...come from the Lord. What more can be said here. So if everything comes from God, and He is the giver of the gifts that we have, what kind of credit can we take? It is like receiving a birthday gift. Many people like to give gifts for birthdays. Well, none of us can control that we were born; none of us can decide that we should come into this world; it is God’s gift to us. And yet for some reason people bring us gifts on our birthdays. It is His gift of life that our maker gives to us.
So how should we respond: GRATITUDE!!! Gratitude helps to humble us because we realize where the gift comes from and that we have done nothing to earn it. “Of a truth, nothing so tends to humble us before the mercy of God as the multitude of his gifts to us; just as nothing so tends to humble us before his justice as the multitude of our misdeeds” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 81).
To think of the gifts God has given us is something good. Still, sometimes we can start thinking that I have made these things happen. St. Francis De Sales suggests this remedy, “There is no fear that a perception of what he has given you will puff you up, so long as you keep steadily in mind that whatever is good in you is not of yourself” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 81). All the good that we have comes from God. “But if, when realizing the gifts of God has given you, any vanity should beset you, the infallible remedy is to turn to the thought of all our ingratitude, imperfection, and weakness” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 81). Why? So that we will realize how much more we need God because we have so many areas in our lives that are not perfect. Only God can perfect us and it is His gift to us. We have need to just thank Him for the way He is working and then continually to ask Him to be with us. All is gift!