It will not help much if we simply remind ourselves:\u00c2\u00a0 God gives to the ungrateful, and so should we.\u00c2\u00a0 But it will help if we remember that it’s God who gives when we give.\u00c2\u00a0 For then we need to deflect gratitude that comes to us anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 We are not its proper addressees.\u00c2\u00a0 God is.\u00c2\u00a0 And if we are convinced that gratitude doesn’t properly belong to us, then ingratitude doesn’t touch us.\u00c2\u00a0 We are not disrespected by ingratitude; our pride is not injured.\u00c2\u00a0 The ingratitude of recipients wrongs not us but the gift-giving God — the God whose goodness “gladly loses its good deed on the unthankful.”\u00c2\u00a0 And so we too continue to give, even to the ungrateful.<\/p>\n
The self in whom Christ is active is modest.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t give in order to aggrandize itself, prove its moral worth, or demonstrate its power.\u00c2\u00a0 It can forget itself in the act of giving and reach out to neighbors in love — it gives in order to delight in others and to help them in their needs.<\/p>\n
— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, <\/em>p. 115<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It will not help much if we simply remind ourselves:\u00c2\u00a0 God gives to the ungrateful, and so should we.\u00c2\u00a0 But it will help if we remember that it’s God who gives when we give.\u00c2\u00a0 For then we need to deflect gratitude that comes to us anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 We are not its proper addressees.\u00c2\u00a0 God is.\u00c2\u00a0 And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-gratitude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}