“If Ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him?” Luke 11:13
AND HE DOES!!!! The Spirit is exactly what we all need at
every moment! And it is exactly what God gives to us. But just as with any
gift, we can accept it or reject it (choosing salvation found in Christ or
choosing to reject that Salvation found in Christ. We only get the Holy Spirit
when we accept Christ as our Savior.
But far too often we accept this gift of the Holy Spirit
only to lay it on the shelf, alone and forgotten. Like an old birthday gift
that has lost it’s first charm.
We quench Him. We say “no” to His “Yes”. And we grieve Him,
we say “yes” to His “no”. We also don’t give Him anything to work with. The
Holy Spirit uses God’s Word within our hearts to give us direction and to
change our hearts. But too often we leave the Word on the shelf, giving the
Holy Spirit no fuel with which to work with. It would be like filling the car with
gas but leaving the keys in the house. We get in, but we can’t start it. The
power is there (the Holy Spirit never loses His power) as we have gas in the
vehicle. But we don’t have a way to start it up.
Every time I give Miriam a gift, it delights my soul to see
her enjoy it and gladly accept it. Here I get a small glimpse of what it must
be like to God when He gives us gifts J.
But this also swings the other way…if Miriam doesn’t accept
my gift, or isn’t delighted, or just plain ignores it altogether…this would
upset me…especially after going to all the work to give her joy.
This too, is a small picture of what it must be like for our
Father when we are not delighted in His gifts, or when we ignore them. So I
pray daily “Lord, open my eyes to your gifts.” And He DOES! There are SO many
blessings and gifts with which God blesses us with daily! It is not that we are
not blessed, but rather we lack eyes to see that we truly are blessed and we
lack eyes to see the gifts which He gives us!
And there is yet, another way this goes. There are times
where I have to with-hold a gift from Miriam. And this… this grieves my mama
heart folks!
A month ago she refused to eat her lunch, which is not an
uncommon thing for her to do from time to time.
She thoroughly enjoys helping me make cookies. Now, my mama
heart wants to think that this is because she enjoys spending time with me…but
I’m almost certain that the reason she enjoys it so is because of what she gets
at the end: to lick the spatula and bowl lol!
I needed to make cookies on this particular day and I had
been looking forward to doing this with her after lunch. However, since she
refused lunch, I had to teach her a hard lesson. I needed to get her attention
and show her that refusing to eat lunch was a wrong choice she had made. The
only way to do this was to make cookies without her…and in front of her and not
let her lick a single thing!
Oh how it pained my heart to do that!
How I wanted to enjoy her fellowship in making cookies and
see the delight upon her face when I allowed her to lick the spatula and bowl!
My Father in heaven, had to do a similar scenario with one
of His own daughters: me!
Back last spring, when I miscarried, I was still holding
onto my sin of an eating disorder. God needed to get my attention. So instead
of granting me my longed for and earnestly prayed for little blessing, He
instead gave and then quickly took that precious soul away. I, at the time, saw
Him as cold and heartless (wrong thinking I know) but I needed that miscarriage
to get a hold of my heart. To grab my attention and get my focus on Him and to
realize my wrong and to call on Him for deliverance. Which thankfully because
of Him I am more free today than I ever have been and it has been nearly 10
years since I began letting this sin take over my life! HALLELUJAH!
In my grace, I saved Miriam the paddle for another day when
she did eat her lunch (which just so happened to be the next day). And in His
grace, God did grant me another child on another day. We know her as Rachel
Renae, or Squeaky J. She is our rainbow baby!
So sometimes, God does give and sometimes He takes away when
needed. Yet still, we say “blessed be the name of the Lord our God!” Now I
realize that this verse is talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit, but we
also know from scripture that God gives SO many other gifts, and one of them
being children J
“Behold, children are a GIFT from the Lord!”
And sometimes this goes yet another way entirely. Some think
that when God punishes someone, or “chastens” to use the Biblical terminology
for how God sometimes gets the attention of those who have been redeemed, some
think that when He does this He does it out of anger. Like the hot burning
anger of a mother or father who just found their child covered in mud in the
middle of the living room. Mud is plastered literally everywhere and company is
set to come the next day. Seething with anger, the parent responds in an
unbiblical manner and lashes out at the child. Striving to get back at the
child for what the child did to them. We call this the retaliation response.
This would be reacting instead of acting. This would be punishing out of anger,
and anger cannot ever produce in our children the righteousness of God James 1!
Anger never works! Yelling never works. Elijah expected God to be in the BIGNESS
and He came in the smallness! He expecting a yell and got a whisper instead.
This is what God’s kids need, and this is what our kids need too! And to be
honest with you a whisper is a whole lot scarier!
Responding to our kids like the scenario above as I said is
unbiblical, but for many of us this is either how our parents responded all the
time or some of the time. And we often think that “God is altogether like us”
when He indeed is so far from! One night a few months ago, I had to give Miriam
a spanking. I HATE giving her spankings. I don’t like doing it. Now, I must
admit to you that there are times when my sinful flesh and my selfishness gets
the better of me. Miriam cramps my style, stops me from being able to enjoy
something, or the worst embarrasses me in front of other people. And I respond
in my pride with anger instead of grace. I respond with retaliation instead of
discipline.
But this particular night, I had to spank her. As I was
walking down the hallway to her room I could feel my heart sink lower and lower
because I did not want to have to spank her…then it hit me. Like a ton of
bricks and brought hot stinging tears to my eyes. This, this is how God must
feel (rather this must be as close to a picture of how God must feel because I
am but finite and He Infinite). God must on some way higher level, feel pain in
having to bring the ones who He loves punishment and chastening.
Whenever He punishes me I think of Him like I think of
myself towards Miriam when I am punishing her unbiblically. I think of Him as
some kind of wrath filled God that is just out to get me for what I just did.
It never registered with me of how it must hurt Him to have to punish one of
His own!
And on an even bigger scale how much it must have hurt Him
to crush His One and Only Son Jesus! WOW! Just wow! Sometimes I so wish Miriam
would just follow the rules and boundaries set for her so I wouldn’t have to
punish her. God on an even higher and holier level feels the same about us.
I truly believe it
grieves Him to have to get our attention in the tough stuff of life. I truly
believe it crushes Him. Because if it crushes me, a depraved human, it must
crush an almighty Holy God Who loves so unconditionally and perfectly 1 Cor.
13!
There are so many pictures of God that I keep finding as I
parent, and it just warms my heart and gives me goosebumps! Parenting opens
ones eyes more and more to the character and person of God, if we but open our
eyes!
