Good Gifts

July 8, 2021

Lydia Madison

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

“And he said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.’ ...And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’” Luke 11:2-4; 9-13

Since yesterday, a random biblical truth has been floating in my mind: God only gives good gifts. I don’t know what the original context was that caused me to think about this, or why the Lord would be reminding me of this truth right now, but it had been on my heart and mind nonetheless. Then, this morning during my quiet time, the above passage in Luke which addresses this very topic happened to be my reading for the day. I do not believe in coincidences, so I do think that I am supposed to speak on this topic. I don’t even have a personal anecdote to accompany it because it feels very out of the blue. So, I will simply share my thoughts on these verses and pray that God speaks through me.

-God is not in the business of tricking us.

Sometimes when we pray, we may feel afraid to be raw and honest with God about what is on our heart. We may fear that if we share our vulnerabilities with Him, it will backfire on us. For instance, if we want to ask God for healing from sickness or for physical protection before a trip, we may fear that He will say, “Ha! That’s a weakness they have that I can mess with.” The fear that God may respond by directly countering our prayer requests may make us hesitant to voice our petitions to Him. But God is a good, loving Father. There is not even a shred of craftiness or deceit in His nature. When we pray, we can trust Him with our thoughts, feelings and desires. He will never turn on us when we turn to Him in vulnerability.

-All of God’s gifts are good, even if they might not always seem to be good.

While God will never intentionally give us the opposite of what we ask Him for, nor deceive us in any way, that does not necessarily mean He will always give us exactly what we want. Being a good Father, He knows what we need, and this is not always the same as what we want. Therefore, we must surrender our ideas of what God’s good gifts should look like. From our earthly standpoint, at times it may seem as if our prayers are being deferred or that God is unwilling to grant our requests. We must remember that our Father sees what we cannot see and knows what we do not know. While we may not recognize it at the time, His intentions are always for our good and not for malice.

-The greatest gift that God bestows on us is the Holy Spirit.

We spend much time praying about earthly matters: provision, health, safety, etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with this; no matter is too small or insignificant for God. However, the most important thing we can ask for on a daily basis is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon every area of our lives. In the Luke passage, the topic of the Holy Spirit seems to come out of left field, as Christ was first describing an earthly father giving earthly gifts to his children. He then switches focus to this spiritual dimension quite abruptly, and I think this is intentional. It is meant to get our attention and cause us to look at the whole topic from a spiritual lens. Yes, it is good to pray for our daily bread. It is good to pray about our relationships with others and about forgiveness. It is good to pray that God will keep us from sin. But we need the presence of the Holy Spirit to fill these areas so that the Lord can work in them. And God promises to give us the very good gift of His presence whenever we ask for it in faith.

Oh Father, you only give good gifts. You will never hurt us or manipulate us when we come to You in humility. You will never put us to shame (Romans 10:11). Make us ever more eager to pray to You, and ever more trusting of Your goodness which You so clearly manifested to us on the Cross. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit so that You may direct every area of our lives. We surrender our desires and expectations to You in light of Your constant goodness towards us. In Your trustworthy and generous Name, Amen.