Hearts
Give us hearts so full of your love.
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Something to think about
God is the Father of every human being on earth; so however different we may be, we are all brothers and sisters to one another, owing each other not only love and concern but practical and effective support.
Caucasian or Chinese, Indo-European or African, we belong to one another as God’s family. So we pray for the love of Christ in our hearts and the strength of the Almighty in our spirits, that we may experience and share the fullness of God’s love with all God’s people, near and far, especially those in greatest need.
Christian Aid helps us to express this love in action; and this is important because love that is expressed only in words may be little more than sentimental.
Real love, God’s love, only lives by sharing – and sharing at the expense of the giver.
If I say that I love you, but refuse to be generous and open-handed, “storing up treasures for myself”, I am little but a hypocrite, even a liar, as implied by Luke’s Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12: 13-22) and James 2.17: “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
Something to do
So what can we do? Put at its simplest, we can look around to see what we are not using.
Start with the wardrobe, the kitchen cabinet, then maybe proceed to the book-shelves, the attic, or the garden shed.
Some call this “de-cluttering”; but decluttering alone is not enough. Take nothing to the dump!
The parish sale, the nearest direct provision centre or charity shop are good first ports of call.