Means of grace

 Here's the quote from Brennan Manning (in 'A glimpse of Jesus'), which I referred to this morning:

"Jesus perceived that the only way to help people experience life as gracious gift, the only way to help them to prize themselves as grace and treasure, was to treat them as treasure and be gracious to them. I can be anointed, prayer over, sermonized to, dialogued with, and exposed to God's unconditional love in books, tracts, and tapes, but this marvellous revelation will fall on ears that do not hear and eyes that do not see, unless some other human being refresh the weariness of my defeated days. Barring prevenient grace, we humans simply will not accept our life and being as God's gracious gift unless someone values us. 'We can only sense ourselves and our world valued and cherished by God when we feel valued and cherished by others' (quoting James P Mackey)."

There is profound truth here, it seems to me - and a vital clue as to how it is that we fulfill our calling to bring blessing to the world.