Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous;
Teach me to serve you as you deserve,
To give and not to count the cost,
To fight and not to heed the wounds,
To toil and not to seek for rest,
To labor and not to seek reward,
Except that of knowing that I do your will.
Amen.
— St Ignatius of Loyola*
This is a hard prayer for me. I want to be this generous. I wish I could give and not count the cost. To labor and not to seek reward. But I’m not there (yet).
I try to be generous – with my time, talents, and money – but it often brings up fear of not having enough. I fear that if I give my time, I might not be able to do everything on my (long) to-do list. If I work hard, my efforts might be unappreciated or unrecognized. If I donate money, I might not have enough to take care of myself as I get older. And my generosity gets diminished as the result of all that fear.
So, this prayer, although difficult, is just what I need. And I get solace from the fact that St Ignatius must have felt something similar since he felt the need to pray for God’s help with these things. Apparently, he prayed this often enough to write it down, and it must have resonated with enough others that it continued to be passed down through the ages.
*For more info about St Ignatius of Loyola, see my post Good Advice from 400 Years Ago
Falling Up After 50 
Every time I see this prayer (or the suscipe of St. Ignatius Loyola which I believe is a different prayer), I think as you do, Tacky. I doubt my ability to be that strong and faithful. Thank you for acknowledging that you, too, need help.
LikeLike
I still can’t bring myself to pray the suscipe prayer. I’m not yet convinced that I even want to ASK for that much giving up of control. The best I can do is pray that someday I’m ready to consider it.
LikeLike
IMHO God is a god of abundance – I have heard that, but like you its hard to incorporate that into the core of who I am. I have the same barriers as you… but I often come back to the loaves+fishes miracle, and the oft-heard explanation that those gathered had the bread and fish to feed thousands, it was this same barrier that initially prevented their sharing. The power of the God of abundance who worked a miracle that day (to overcome resistance to sharing) still works miracles. So we pray! Thanks to you for another excellent post, and thanks to @shortonegirl for adding your insights!
LikeLike
Nice linkage to the loaves & fishes. I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s another good reminder of the power of generosity (and the all too human tendency that gets in the way of our sharing).
LikeLike