The Affliction Gift


Psalm 117:91

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

When we think of gifts, we imagine cool stuff, wrapped in shiny happy paper, and tied with a bow. Under the tree. Very few think of gifts as painful...they wouldn't really be gifts then. We can get bad gifts but the worst thing that can happen is that we put it in a closet, trash can, or do the dreaded re-gifting. Bad gifts don't typically inflict pain unless their is a sadist Santa in your life.

I actually met someone recently whose Dad's loves fruitcake. Now, that is a sick gift.

You'd think our gifts would make us appreciate the greatest gift-giver of all: God. He who has given us breath and life, the remarkable opportunity of existing.  Yet, if we bring strength to strength, our intelligence can lead us astray from having a mind for God. We believe in our intellectual emanations not based on divine wisdom. If we are powerful physically and enjoy good health, God's call can be drowned out by the shouts of self-sufficiency. Conceit rather than Christ.

 Our gifts can make us godless. Gain the whole world but lose our soul.

This is where adversity comes in as a gift. It interrupts the cycle of self-sufficiency where we get abundant empirical evidence that we are not enough. The haze of satiation is cleared by the biting winds of adversity which devour our complacency. Soon, we are left with crumbs of confidence. And, that can cause us to look up and to seek God and not down upon His gifts. That is the greatest gift.   

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