What father doesn't want to give his children good gifts?
I hear this a lot especially from the prosperity people who believe God wants us all to be rich and healthy. If we just say the right formula and put the right words in place God will do what we want!!!
What's a good gift? When does the child know what is right? Had a bit of situation with one of my sons who is getting a hard time at football because he's a foreigner, pretty much your typical sort of stuff that immigrants have to put up with. Would a good gift be for me to step in and deal with the child concerned? Would a good gift be for me to do what he asks, which is let him drop football, at 11 o'clock at night when he is tired? Or is it a good gift for me to get him to tough it out and grow from the experience? Now I don't want answers for what I should do, I'm his dad and we'll work it out together. But it is so much more complex than me just doing what he wants.
You know I have met some kids whose parents give them everything they want, it doesn't help the child. I know wealthy people who could give their children everything they ask for but they don't and their children are so much more balanced than the child who gets all he ever asks for!
Here's another thought, when we got the farm we quoted Ephesians 3.20 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" the farm not working was immeasurably more than I asked for or imagined!!!
What if someone died or got ill who you where praying for, wouldn't that be immeasurably more than you asked for or imagined? What if you prayed for success and met with failure wouldn't that be immeasurably more than you asked for or imagined? What if you prayed for money and riches and you became poor wouldn't that be immeasurably more than you could have asked for or imagined?
You see when you look at that scripture we can nearly always imagine immeasurably more than we have when it is translated into positive results and getting more or getting better! God has done more than I could have asked or imagined with regards to the farm....
1 comment:
Something you said in your post about leaving the farm recently got me thinking; "Little about God's movements and directions in our lives are about the "ministry" itself and more about character and relational strength". I often feel very depressed by the weight of the work that I know God has called me to do. I often wonder if I'm making any kind of a difference in the lives of the damaged young people I work with and frequently wonder if it's worthwhile and worth the heartache. But, lately I'm wondering if it's as much about them having an impact on me as it is about me having an impact on them, because I have been challenged, chanelled and changed more than I could ever have imagined over the past couple of years. He IS able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, and so, while I was asking for God to bless the ministry and to make a difference to other people's lives, I failed to forsee that the biggest difference would be to my own. His doing immeasurably more than I asked or imagined has been at a great personal cost to me but there's no doubt looking back that it has been for my ultimate good.
Thanks for your blog Brian.
Post a Comment