Every Good Gift

The biggest gift-giving time of year is five months behind us, but there are plenty more opportunities during the year. Consider graduation, birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and many made-up ones.  Whether giver or receiver, we don’t want to miss a chance to have a party. And we often invest a lot of time coming up with just the right gift.

The Bible is full of God’s gift-giving.

But I fear we often don’t recognize them because God’s gifts come quietly and without fanfare. One verse especially stands out to me with respect to God’s gift-giving. James 1:17, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”

I think sometimes we look to God as a heavenly Santa Claus to provide whatever material things we want. He isn’t, but He does provide our physical needs (food, clothing, shelter). However, we often miss His spiritual gifts that come from the Holy Spirit; such things as a peaceful day, joy in hearing birds sing, a patient techno-nerd walking us through a newly installed computer program, a kind driver letting us into his lane. How easy it is to overlook these in our busy, hectic lives. But they’re there to bless us.

Speaking of joy and blessings,

in James 1 this morning, I was reminded to, “consider it all joy my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials v.2” and “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial v.12”. Rather than fret and fume when trials come our way—and they will—we need to change our perspective and understand that our Father individually custom tailors them as gifts to help us shun the rough edges of sin. He designs our trials to draw us closer to Him, to grow our trust in His goodness as the giver of every good gift. Why? Because He loves us unconditionally and knows what’s best for us.

Think about that…today.