Several years ago I opened a fortune cookie that has significantly changed my life.  The message inside was this:

IF YOU CONTINUALLY GIVE
YOU WILL CONTINUALLY HAVE

When I read those small words on that small slip of paper, something large spoke to me.  I felt compelled to try to live by those words.  Over the years, I have considered it an experiment of sorts.  I’ve put those words to the test over and over and over again.  It’s almost been miraculous!  The more I share, the more I have to share.  Every Single Time.

If I give time, I have time.  If I teach, I learn.  If I share means, I have means.  If I love, I feel loved.  If I express joy, I feel joy.   In fact, there has not been a single aspect of my life that has not returned to me one hundred-fold if I’ve given first.  Even with giving fabric!

I think this phenomenon has something to do with the economy of Heaven.  There are phrases in the scriptures that intrigue me:  a multiplicity of blessings and blessings of abundance,  promised to those who are true and faithful in all things.  I’m learning that one of the characteristics of a faithful believer is one who shares as Jesus did.  He always shared.  In the end, he gave all.  For me.  For you.

I  love putting this fortune cookie message to the test.  I feel like following this admonition brings me closer to Jesus Christ.  I am grateful, this Thanksgiving week, for Him and for his incredible gift to me, to us.  My feeling is that I can never repay his goodness to me, no matter how hard I try.  The return is always greater than any small effort I make.  I love how He loves each one of us, so richly and so freely!

Mosiah 4:11-12:
 11 And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel.

12 And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.