Open Hands

I had a funny experience today. I was offered a gift, something that I want very very much, and because the gift was perfect, no strings attached, exactly what I wanted, I created drama around it. My unconscious literally made up a problem with the gift. And then I went right along and agonized over it! I just couldn't receive with open hands. Ironic, especially in this season of gifting, but I think this is just one of those universal things. Our world is so quid pro quo, so bent on earning things, that we lack the ability to receive.
I'm just now beginning to see that this is one of the big problems of religion: we take a free gift and attach strings. I think God's biggest frustration with us isn't that we're evil, or weak, or hateful. God's biggest frustration is that we just won't take His love. We try to earn it. And we tell other people that they have to earn it. Instead of just opening up our hands and saying, "Yes, I will accept your blessings and your forgiveness and your love and the fresh start on my life and beauty and joy and peace and I will take all that I can get." Like me creating drama around a gift that I could simply receive with joy.