Bless is an action verb. It is not passive and should not be. For those who do not remember the grammar lesson inherent in that statement, being passive subverts who is the actor and who is the object. In other words, it is a mistake to hide who is taking action and who is receiving that action.

As humans we are quick to say, “may the LORD bless me and keep me.” But have I blessed the LORD? Have I praised and asked that the LORD be blessed? Personally, I’ve never really thought about how much I have asked to be blessed but never really blessed the LORD with my whole heart. My initial reaction to the concept is that I am not worthy to bless the LORD. I have found myself wondering why God would want my blessing. I feel unworthy. I think that my blessing is worth very little. How could I possibly bless the LORD?

Instead of showering the LORD with praise, I have looked at things in life and wondered why they have not been blessed. I think things could be better. I think they are too broken. I think a lot of things. But have I ever really returned the blessings to God? Have I actively with my whole heart sung praise to the LORD for all of the benefit and wonder that is bestowed on me every moment of everyday on this Earth? Of course I haven’t, and yet I go about my day asking God to bless this and do that. I pray that this or that happens this or that way. I pray that God take care of me. I pray that God shine his light on me.

I have always focused on what God blesses. Or more accurately, I have always focused on what my human understanding thinks is blessed or should be.

And then through His love I understand. All acts of true love are reciprocal. If I am not blessing the LORD then I am not really understanding the blessings bestowed on me. I am still such a child in my understanding. I am so passive, constantly asking the LORD to act in my favor. I am so blind. LORD, let me see!

So now I stop and bless Our Father for all he is in every moment. I bless the LORD for being more, knowing more, and forgiving more. And now I read some of the key verses of Psalm 103 with clearer vision:

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve- or repay us according to our iniquities.

He remembers that we are dust.

The life of mortals is like grass, -they flourish like a flower of the field;

The wind blows over it and it is gone, - and its place remembers it no more.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Let this be our pray today and every day.

When I choose to act, may it a blessing to God, of God, for God.

When I choose to sing, may I choose words that praise the LORD and everyone around me.

When I sit in silence, may I listen to the blessings the LORD whispers in my heart?

May every action, every utterance, and every moment of reflection be filled with praise for Our LORD, Amen.

This devotional was written by Jill Pope and read by Susan Daves.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

When we hear the word "gift," most of us think of talent — the ability to play an instrument, to paint a picture, to speak before a crowd. These are real gifts, and we should not dismiss them. But Peter has something broader in mind, and if we read him too narrowly, we may miss something important about ourselves.

The Greek word the writer of this epistle uses is charismata — gifts of grace. And grace, as Peter describes it here, comes in many forms. The word he uses for "various" is poikilēs, which means many-colored, like a richly woven fabric. The gifts through which grace flows are just as varied. Some of them don't show up on a résumé. The gift of sitting quietly with someone who is grieving. The gift of asking exactly the right question at exactly the right moment. The gift of noticing what everyone else has walked past. These are real gifts, and they carry real Kingdom weight.

The problem is that we often can't see them in ourselves. What comes naturally to us, we tend to dismiss. We assume that if something is easy for us, it must be easy for everyone. And so a capacity that God has quietly placed in us — shaped by everything we have lived and learned and suffered — gets waved off as nothing special. Sometimes we call this modesty. But there is a kind of false modesty that is really just a failure of honest inventory.

The epistle writers calls us faithful stewards of these gifts. In the ancient world, a steward was not a passive caretaker. A steward was a manager, someone entrusted with resources and expected to put them to work. Jesus makes exactly this point in the parable of the talents. The servant who buried his talent in the ground wasn't being humble. He was being faithless. Fear and false modesty produce the same result — the gift goes unused, ungrown, and the people it was meant for never receive it.

Faithful stewardship means first recognizing what we have been given — honestly, without inflation but also without denial. It means developing those gifts, which takes effort and intention. And it means spending them freely, in service to others, trusting that God's grace does not run out when we give it away. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The more freely the gift is shared, the more abundantly it grows.

What gift has God placed in you that you have been reluctant to name? What capacity have you dismissed as unremarkable that someone around you has quietly needed? These are not small questions. How we answer them is part of what it means to be a faithful steward of God's many-colored grace.

Our Father, open our eyes to the gifts you have placed within us. Give us the honesty to name them, the discipline to develop them, and the generosity to share them freely with those around us. May we be faithful stewards of your grace in all its many forms. Amen.

This devotion was written and read by Jim Stovall.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

You are listening to Grace for All, a daily devotional podcast produced by the people of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee.

This is Scripture Saturday, a time when we pause and reflect on the scriptures we have read throughout the week. If you missed any of our devotionals on these passages, you can find them on our website at 1stChurch.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now, we invite you to listen and receive Grace. Welcome and thank you for joining us.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.