My cousin Jessa and I grew up as good friends, she less than 2 years younger than me, and now she has a 2 year old boy named Ben. Ben is an active, sweet little kid who knows the difference between a backhoe, grader, feller buncher, and pretty much every other piece of major equipment. He also loves to pick and give flowers to every female at a family event. And yesterday at our family Easter gathering, he gave me a daffodil. Well, of course, he gave everyone a daffodil. Some were yellow, others white, some were those mini daffodils and others, like mine, were of the larger-sized variety.
I’m gonna admit that there have been a couple other times in the past when Ben brought me a flower or two, and I appreciated them in the moment but just left them somewhere random, like on the ground or on a table. This time, I brought the daffodil home and placed it in a tallish blue vase with some water. This morning, it looked so nice, just that one daffodil on the kitchen counter in an otherwise kind of drab little apartment. It has got to be the most beautiful thing in our whole apartment right now, actually. I’m so glad I actually kept it and brought it home and took a moment to care for it, because it gave me a joy this morning which may not otherwise have been.
This whole flower thing made me reflect a little bit on how we respond to the many gifts the Lord bestows on us in His goodness. James 1:17 tells us that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Psalm 85:12 begins with the assurance that “The Lord will indeed give what is good” and Matthew 7:11 reminds us that “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Even the oft-quoted verse John 3:16 begins with the fact that “”For God so loved the world, that he gave” – He gave His Son because He loves us! And He continues to give us good things out of love, not because we deserve them by any means nor because we are better than anyone else – but that through those gifts we might praise Him, thank Him, and share our blessings with others for His glory.
I think sometimes we can behave the way I have with the past flowers I’d been given. We think they’re great for a moment, while they’re new, and then we take them for granted. We do not invest the time and resources to build upon our God-given talents and gifts. We no longer appreciate even the material needs He fulfills. We may even look a gift horse in the mouth because we think something just isn’t good enough for us. We deserve more. Perhaps our issue is that we cling too tightly to those gifts and they begin to replace God Himself in our hearts. (And guess what? People are gifts in our lives that we can consider in all these errant ways, too!) Or we can be so consumed with what we don’t have that we lose sight of all the things we do have. And how are we able to be thankful for the gifts we don’t even recognize?
I hope that I can be more like I was yesterday with something as simple as that flower. When the Lord gives me a gift, I pray I can cultivate it and use it to His glory. I pray that He will help me when those opportunities arise to be a blessing to others. If God has gifted me in a certain way and I don’t use it, what is even the point of having the gift? I don’t want to have for the sake of having. I want to have for the sake of using – using any positive traits He has given me, any talents, even material things, I want to use all of it for the sake of building His kingdom. It sounds challenging, but it’s a goal we can all work toward.
I am reading a book this week called “The Broken Way” by Ann Voskamp. One quote from her book which made me pause and spend some time reflecting on my own life is the idea that “We will be known for our actual fruits, not the intentions of our imaginations.” Not what we would do, but what we actually do. Convicting much, Ann? I love it. I need that reminder daily. Are we actually using our gifts and blessings to glorify the Giver and give onward to others? Or are we just soaking them all up for ourselves, letting them either become idols or go to waste, or neglecting to acknowledge them altogether?
God has given each of us fields and fields worth of the most beautiful daffodils. We can toss them on the ground, hoard them all on our counters, or we can tenderly nurture them to bless onward. The only thing we have forever is life in Jesus. Yet He has given us so much more.
Think about the gifts in your lives, my friends. How are you using them?
Psalm 115:1, HLC
sacred strokes 