Daily Meditation: Thursday, August 14, 1997

God has given us qualities, faculties, which we must …

08/14/1997

God has given us qualities, faculties, which we must develop. And the best way to develop these is to put them in His service, because one day He will ask us to account for all these gifts. You are familiar with the parable of the talents, in which a man going on a journey entrusts a sum of money to his slaves. To the first he gave three talents, to the second he gave one, and to the third five. When he returned he settled accounts with them. The one who had received three talents and the one who had received five had made their money work, whilst the one who had received one talent had been content to hide it in the ground. The parable says that the master had him thrown into outer darkness, whilst the others were rewarded. And in the same way heaven will ask us what we have done with the qualities, gifts, and virtues we were given. If we have hidden them in the ground, in other words if we have not developed them, we will be thrown into outer darkness, and that means our development will be restricted and we will lose these gifts. If, on the other hand, we have made them work for us, then not only will we be rewarded, but we will be given others, even more precious. And I repeat, the best way to make our gifts work is by putting them in the service of heaven.