If you’re anything like me, you may find yourself praying for strength and wisdom for the sake of supporting Earth and man—your family, your brothers and sisters.

Lord, I only wish to serve You, to do Thy will. Lead me to boldly and skillfully carry out your work, as expressed through my best qualities, the ones I like most to do. Allow me to serve my brothers with an increasing measure of Your love.

I know Lord, that the only way to serve with anywhere approaching Your compassion is to let go of the desires that only serve my limited self—the ones that confine me, the ones that don’t have to do with a greater giving.

I know that by staying focused on giving, the giver is fulfilled.

So why do I always ask for just one thing in return? It’s as if I’m saying:

 Lord, I’ll do all that you ask of me, I only pray you give me just this one thing to love as if it were my own.

If I’m thinking about my very best qualities and not just being, I’ll consider myself a selfless, giving person. Many of us think of ourselves this way, yet we still find ourselves in this bartering position from time to time, whether we’re asking for money, a good woman or a job.

Don’t we realize how limited we are by this demand? When we love everything as it is Thy own, the world is ours.

When we love our deepest most giving self—we become that thing we asked God to care for as if it were our own.

What we end up continually discovering is that our giving self also guides us to other things to love in a non-attached way. We find ourselves free to find the things we wanted all along.

And we find that our belief structure about what it will take to make us happy only limits our ability to be happy.

In the moments that I find myself self-limiting, asking for something in return for following God’s will, I practice self-love. By loving myself, I’m able to find the reward I desired all along, which is the freedom I need to continue to serve—only smelling the fragrance of the flowers I give away.

Isn’t it funny that with love, we try to barter with God?

Editor: Lynn Hasselberger

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photo: paul nine-o