Heavenly Currency

Am I willing to give thanksgiving even if I may never understand the why of my circumstances? This is the sacrifice of praise – when it is difficult. We have the idea that we cannot be thankful unless we can make sense of something or someone. We are only grateful when we feel good. It is very important to us to understand. Is this because we want to be a judge and decide if something or someone is fair or not? If so, then we also are judging God for what is happening to us.

Gratitude may be in fact less effect than it is cause. It is the currency of heaven. We have believed that for us to enrich another with this “money” that they have to work hard and make us feel good before we will turn loose of it. The world's monetary and value system has permeated every part of our life.

But this currency is very different than earthly money. This currency can be created “on demand” by our own choice at any time. This currency, when given away does not make us the poorer but multiplies itself back to us when given away, especially to those whom we initially think do not deserve it. In fact, the only way we can become rich (in the real reality system) is by giving ourself away. When we wait for “good reasons” before we generate this transaction we impoverish ourselves as well as cheat all those around us.

This issue of understanding is at the heart of this problem. We want to understand and create a decision as to how much value a person has in our estimation and then decide how much they should be paid in gratitude. Again – the economics of Satan's kingdom. But this also involves the reverse. We desperately want to be understood by others and appreciated (paid) for our value and feel impoverished when we are not. We sometimes work hard to demonstrate our value to others hoping to receive a few “pennies of heaven” so we can have feel a little value to reinvest in others.

We want to understand before we pay.

We want to be understood so we can get paid.

Or we may have come to believe that because we are not appreciated by others that we may not have value. We don't have enough value to be loved and we need to work harder to somehow make ourself more valuable. This is reinforced by the fact that it seems to work this way most of the time. Those who do “great” things externally are rewarded with praise and value by many around them. This strengthens the lie that we can only et paid – we can only be enriched with a sense of worth – if we can squeeze it out of others, even God. So we work harder at being understood. If others could just understand us better and see our importance and specialness we might get enough currency to keep us going a little longer.

But again, we don't realize that this currency is not so much received – as in pulled in from others – as it is created by our choice to give it. There are multipliers involved in the giving too. When we praise those who are proud and successful we use a negative factor and may even become poorer. When we appreciate our friends and those who make us feel good we use various low digit factors that can enrich us only slightly. This is where most of us live. But a few have discovered how to tap in to high digit factors that create unbelievable returns and astound others with the enormous wealth that can be generated with relatively very small investments. This is when they find seemingly undeserving people (or circumstances) and choose to invest gratitude and praise into them, or often in spite of them. They turn out to be the most wealthy people in the kingdom of heaven and it baffles us.

This is because we have trued to apply the rules of earthly economics to the heavenly system and then wondered why it doesn't produce good returns. Heavenly currency (riches) is generated “on demand” by our choice to give it (not demands of others or God to receive it).

In the world's system value is transient and fickle, dependent on how much we can make other people feel better in various ways good or bad. In heaven's system value is constant but is discovered as we uncover it in others.

Unextracted praise and gratitude – unearned – is like a master key that unlocks hearts, both others and our own.