I have a beautiful friend who is incredibly transparent; with her struggles, with her victories, with her faith journey. Inspired by her, I decided to try transparency. I didn’t like
it. Here’s what happened.
For
some time now, the Lord has been teaching me to see His gifts in every day
life. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."(James 1:17 ESV) It
doesn’t say every spiritual gift, although we know all of those come from
him. It doesn’t say every ‘big’ gift,
although we do give Him credit for those.
It says every gift. Every kind
word, every front parking space when you’re exhausted, every green light when
you’re driving your sick friend home;
every good gift is from God.
This
realization has created in me a thankful heart for everything my Father gives
me, big or small. What an incredible
thing to realize everything good in my life is from the Lord! It becomes much, much easier for praise to
continually be in my mouth when I’m thanking Him for his constant, consistent
gifts.
The
next step in this process began a few months ago. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”(Romans 12:15 ESV) I realized that
my Father has many children, and He gives them good gifts, just like He gives
them to me. Sometimes, He even gives
someone I know a good gift that I wanted, and doesn’t give it to me. I don’t know about you, but rejoicing with
someone who has been given something I prayed for, but didn’t receive, is
hard. I realized that I, while
theoretically understanding that my Father has millions of children, wanted to
be treated as His only child. Clearly, I
needed to change. (The second part of that verse is important. But that's another blog.)
So
the Lord has softened my heart, and opened my heart-eyes, to see good things
happening to other people as gifts from Him, just as I learned to see His gifts
to me. And, slowly, I am beginning to
praise Him for His gifts to others. Even
when He gives them something I wanted instead of giving it to me.
So I
shared an abbreviated version of the above with a lady I met today. Her response was something like 'I’m glad
you’re finally learning that, I learned that YEARS ago. My pastor just preached a sermon about
it! He said it indicates there are
things in your life that need cleansing, and that you need peace.' Ouch.
It isn’t that she was wrong. She
wasn’t. My Father peals back onion
petals to reveal the next thing that needs sanctifying. I’m very thankful He doesn’t dump everything
He wants changed on me at once. I would
buckle under the weight! I realize there
are issues that need change, and it is getting both easier and more spontaneous
to thank Him for gifts to others as I would thank Him for gifts to me. I just didn’t want to hear such a blunt ‘its
about time’!
So
now I have TWO things to work through:
rejoicing with others when God gives them good gifts, and taking with
grace and wisdom true words that sting.
One more onion petal yanked out. That’s
gonna leave a mark.
‘Better
is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful
are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy…Iron sharpens
iron, and one man sharpens another.’ Prov. 27:6, 17 Even a new friend, I
suppose.
