My greatest gift

I get to witness the interplay of faith and action in so many lives that I consider this to be my greatest gift from God. I see people who are in despair experience hope from others, I see spiritual generosity on small and large scales, I see friendships form out of want and need. I see great resilience in others. And, yes, sometimes I see human failure to respond to opportunities.

Sometimes people email me for assistance and I try to find them what they need, whether it's a wheelchair or accessible housing or a local hookup to support. Some people tell me they've lost their faith because they have prayed for certain things to happen and God didn't fix the problem. I tell them that going through spiritual "dark" times happens, and has even happened to saints. Life can be tough. I also tell them, however, that praying without taking action is not what I recommend. There are some areas where we have to do the footwork and make ourselves ready for God's help. This means taking action.

Although I believe that God works in our lives, I also believe that if an opportunity comes along, you need to be as ready as you can be to make it work within your own abilities. The spiritual side to this is that God knows what we can and can't do. In other words, what I've seen in my life is that if people do what they can, opportunities often come along that fit their circumstances. I'm no Pollyanna and I'm not saying things always work out - at least they don't appear to, based on my limited human perspective - but I've also learned that praying for specific outcomes for people is humbling since God generally has a better plan in mind than I do for most, including myself. But if we don't do what we can to better things, we may not be ready for what chances come along.

The good news is that God continues to work in our lives even if we miss opportunities. It's understandable, of course, to feel down when things are tough and to feel as if our efforts aren't worth making. Sometimes in my own life, only hindsight has shown me that I failed to act when I could have. Learning from this, rather than blaming God or anyone else, has taught me to make myself ready for the next opportunity.

This morning I heard from a woman who told me that she found an accessible place to live. When I spoke to her about options several months ago, she didn't like any of them and blamed me - and God - for not fixing the problem. She was facing going into a nursing home when her aging parents sold their home. A scary and frightening problem. But I knew that she had to take some action on her own to make it all happen or it wouldn't work. She now tells me that she did take action and is living independently of her parents for the first time in an affordable apartment.

Faith and action. If we look around us, in these tough economic times, we can see how those work hand in hand to solve so many problems, some of our own making. Facing our own need to take responsibility as well as asking God for help may lead us to solutions we never dreamed of.