November 17: Kipling had it wrong

Ezekiel 35:1-36:38
James 1:1-18
Psalm 116:1-19
Proverbs 27:23-27

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, Who does not change like shifting shadows."

This verse made me think: what are God's "good and perfect gifts"? In the OT reading today we read about how God is planning to bring the Israelites home to a fruitful land after having permitted their captivity and enslavement. Was the captivity and enslavement a "good and perfect gift"? Are any of the hardships we experience - the challenges of marriage, the concerns raising children, the worry about work - "good and perfect gifts"?

As difficult as it may be for me to accept and to understand, today's NT reading tells me all of this is from God, and all of it constitutes His "good and perfect gifts". Because even the painful and the difficult situations, even the trials are from God and deserving of "pure joy" because of the the transformative work they accomplish in us, if we permit them to and approach them properly. God tells us that faith in trial produces perseverance, which leads to maturity and completeness, so we are "not lacking anything".

Certainly we go through much hardship difficult to understand - we know neither reason nor purpose, and consequently we are mired in worry. It seems that it is a "lack of wisdom" that prevents us from seeing these difficulties from the perspective of our loving God - who again gives us the solution - if we lack wisdom, "you should ask God", and trust that He who gives generously will grant our request.

As I sit on the train on a Tuesday morning, writing this a day late (Sorry!), I am astounded by the magnitude of the implications of today's readings. In this light, when I almost died from a burst appendix in 1991, it was a good and perfect gift. So was the time I lost my job during the financial crisis. And the time my marriage was struggling, and the times I worried for my children.

I'll go a bit further: we have dear friends whose second child, a son, went home to God when he was but 13 months old. I have a consultant who is about to get a divorce. I know people who have just lost their jobs, and unjustly so. As difficult as it may be to comprehend and to accept, all of this, too, is God's "good and perfect gifts".

Kipling once wrote "if you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same". He had it wrong. For those who believe in our Lord's perfect love, absolute wisdom and infinite power, it is only disaster that is an impostor.

Father, help us see the world through Your eyes, and through the lens of Your love and our relationship with You, that we might recognize Your hand and be comforted in the knowledge You are in control, and will have permitted all that comes to pass - even any and every difficulty we might face - because You love us and want to bring us home to You.