Receiving God’s Gifts and Tests

I continue with unpacking thoughts from “I Want to Live from the Center of Things,” today looking at how we receive gifts and tests in life from God.

I want to live from the center of things.

I want to enjoy the gifts of everyday as generous graces of God.

I want to face into the problems and struggles of life as grace-filled tests from God.

How often in life do we go through a day and a week without paying attention to the gifts that come to us from God. Day by day He offers us grace in the simple pleasures and gifts of life, but we walk by without noticing. And yet, as the Apostle James says, “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (James 1:17).

We have so often lost the ability to stop, to gaze in wonder, and to appreciate the gifts of life. We are weary with business and economics, but fail to see with the eyes of a child the gifts of sunlight, bird’s songs, a kind word from a total stranger, a gentle hand on the shoulder in a difficult time. We notice, yet fail to receive it at the same time.

These gifts are God’s graces to us in life. Let us not miss them.

So, too, are the difficulties of life graces of God. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trial of many kinds” (James 1:2). Why? Because this testing produces perseverance and what a gift the virtue of perseverance is in our wearying world.

If only we could say with Job, “when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). Yet we, as is so often the way of humanity, strain hard to avoid the most basic tests of our bodies, our minds, or our character. We strive to avoid the difficulties. But why? So that we can maintain the status quo in our lives. That we might not have to change … for the better.

The writer to the Hebrews offers us this advice:

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? … Our parents disciplined us for
a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7, 10-11)

The problems and struggles of our lives are truly grace-filled tests given by God. He grows us and changes us for good through them, if we will but receive them as such.

I want to live from the center of things.

I want to enjoy the gifts of everyday as generous graces of God.

I want to face into the problems and struggles of life as grace-filled tests from God.