Not Just For Me

Isn’t that beautiful?  I watched the clouds all the way home Monday and longed for my DSLR to catch their beauty. There was some shifting and fading as I drove along, but a couple of shots when I got home still gave me the beauty God offers. And, it’s not just for me. It’s open to everyone who will take time to look for His gifts.

Which reminded me of a book loaned to me last week, Ann Voskamp’s “One Thousand Gifts.” I had a problem with the book. It is filled with adjectives and takes a while to get the picture she’s painting in such detail. I wasn’t prepared for the angst she endured before seeing God’s gifts, either. Some of her descriptions were not … I can’t explain – expected? fitting? Something just a half a bubble off.

I did however, understand her listing gifts from God, and I appreciate her lists were personal. I wondered what I would have put down. Today’s clouds could make the list. My children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren’s births would be part of that list – the miracles seen in how tiny toes and fingers are created from generation to generation.

Then I looked at the number of posts I’ve done just here on Blogspot. Over 1,475. Each one speaks of a gift from God, an insight into His word, the unspeakable gift of His son, the grace that saves us, the mercy that keeps us from our deserved justice.

Some things cannot be changed – it will rain on the just and the unjust. The wicked will be in power, spreading as a green bay tree and it will appear unjust to us. How can we see a blessing, a gift in that?

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. (Habakkuk 1:12 KJV)

I like what Matthew Henry wrote about this verse:

The world is bad, and always was so, and will be so; it is out of our power to mend it; but we are sure that God governs the world, and will bring glory to himself out of all, and therefore we must resolve to make the best of it, must be ourselves better, and long for the better world.

A thousand gifts – at one a day, that’s less than three years. Can you find more than one a day? My book-loaner friend has been making a journal of hers long before she read Ann’s book. Some are simple – a squirrel on her porch in the morning.  Some are profound and remain unshared.

In an unfriendly, wars-occurring, greed-abounding, widows-and-orphans ignored world, His gifts are blessings. Among them are friends who love Him, share His word and pray with us along the way. All available for everyone, not just for me.  Look closely below – you can see one of His promises – it's very light, but there is a rainbow in the center: