Our Creator is an infinitely loving and generous provider - and yet most of us have trouble asking for help or for those things that are rightly ours to request. We insist on doing it all alone and then wonder why things go so far downhill so fast. Of course, some of us have been taught that it is not right to ask for things, or that we can ask for things, for others or for the common good, not for ourselves. But why should this be the case? Nearly every spiritual and religious canon teaches that we have only to ask and we shall receive, that our Creator is our provider and that we are rich beyond imagining in all things because or our relationship to God. No, I see no issue with asking for what we need (or want) as part of our divine birthright - accepting, of course, that our answer could be "No," for any number of reasons that we are not in a position to see or understand.

Imagine, if you will, that your life has been spent struggling and scraping, barely getting by. You work hard and hope for the best, but although you do pray with sincere gratitude for the blessings you have received, you never ask for sustenance or boon, feeling that if God wanted you to have any such thing, it would appear in its own good time. For many, this would seem like a proper and pious life (and indeed there is little wrong with such a life, speaking from a strictly spiritual point of view). But look a little farther into the future to the time of your passing.

Friends gather for one last visit and you make your goodbyes until you are called into the great beyond. You are taken up by a blinding white light that feels like love incarnate (and may well be), and are met in the afterlife by your guardian spirit. After a brief round of catch-up with previously passed friends and relatives, you are shown to your heavenly abode, brightly shining in the glow of heaven's eternal day. You tour your home, pleased with the serenity and abundance it provides, and the good reflection of your earthly endeavors that it represents (for most canons also teach that our good works lay up our fortune in heaven). After a while, you tour the gardens, amazed at the beautiful flowers and gorgeous winged insects that seem to glow from within and sing out their life-force like a symphony of passion and joy. It is so beautiful that you can hardly believe that it is all yours. Then you spot something out of place, a small shed tucked into a far corner of the grounds.

Curious, you go over to it and look inside, surprised to find it piled high with golden and jeweled tokens marked with icons for food, clothing, money, love, friendship and so many other items that it's impossible to read them all. You're puzzled and not a little hurt, because no one has need of any of these items here, where everything is freely given and always available, whereas you could have really used them back on earth. How much more enjoyable and productive your life would have been had you had all of this then, and how useless they all are now that you're here. Why, you wonder, would you be given such a large supply of such unnecessary items after your passing, and denied them during your life?

As you turn to your guide with the question unspoken on your lips (for when we are all in spirit form, speech is the long way 'round), you are met with a wry and loving smile. "Ah, well, you see, it's like this," the being laughs, still joyful at your return to the heavenly fold, "These were all the things that we had set aside for you to use in your life. But you never sent for it - and so here it sits, waiting still."

Don't leave your storage shed full of the awesome bounty that is God's gift to you. Send for your store of treasure whenever the need strikes, with a soul full of thanks and a heart full of gladness and joy. After all, even it's true that you can't take your worldly goods with you when you go, it's just as true that you can't use the overage when you get there, either.