It's the thankfulness month! One thing that matches with thankfulness like peanut butter matches with jelly is gifts. If you get a good gift, one that is perfectly suited to you and shows that the giver knows you so well, it causes a burst of gratitude. During this month of thankfulness, my church group has been studying James, and we came across this famous verse on gifts: "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) The surprise take away for me was how closely this verse is linked to trials.
When I hear about good and perfect gifts, here are the things that immediately spring to mind: my spouse and my kids. My extended family on both sides. Friendships. Health. A house, plenty of food, cars to drive, clothes to wear. Two fun vacations this year. The Sierra Nevadas. Spiritually, I would include salvation, God's love, hope for the future, and the peace that passes understanding. There are so many more things that could be included, big and small.
I often see this verse used on social media related to the birth of a healthy child - a darling newborn arranged in a sweet pose, with this verse as the caption. I think I may have used it myself when Ivy was born. Sweet words to go with the happy moment. But what about my first child, who was taken down to the NICU after birth, intubated and plugged into machines, and eventually air flighted to Salt Lake City? Does the verse about "every good and perfect gift" belong on that birth story? I'm not questioning the good gift of my son here - I love Josh so deeply, so fiercely, exactly as he is - but the question is about the experience of walking through surgeries, through hospitalizations, and through the various other difficulties on this path - how does that fit into good and perfect gifts?
There are good things that have come from the difficulties: deepened compassion for others going through similar trials; increased focus on the eternal; so many answered prayers; so much love extended to us from others. But these things, while they are undoubtedly good gifts, they don't fully add up in a one to one correspondence sort of way, to explain and illuminate all the suffering that has happened and continues to happen for both Josh and all the people who love him, related to his genetic condition.
I don't understand it all, I don't see how all of it is good and perfect, and I never will in this world. In the middle of not understanding, I have the promises that God is in control of everything, God is good, and God loves us. The good and perfect gift of trials is learning to believe that these promises are true, even when I don't understand how it all fits together, and to experience the maturing and strengthening of faith that can only come from walking through a trial.
When you read through all of James 1, you see that this is the context, this is a big part of what is meant by "good and perfect gifts" in this verse. The whole beginning of the chapter talks about how going through trials and persevering in the faith leads to spiritual growth, and that section concludes with this verse. Certainly God's good gifts include family and friends, material provision, the lovely and enjoyable things in life, and spiritual blessings. But this year, I'm reflecting on the specific blessing of walking through a trial, not understanding it, continuing to believe that God is faithful through the ups and downs of my (and my loved ones') circumstances, and receiving the good and perfect gift of moving towards being spiritually "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (v. 4)
This is not to say that once you've read this verse, going through trials will feel like sunshine and rainbows. Trials still feel like heartbreak and anger and confusion and frustration. They are still gut wrenching. But the encouragement, the gratitude point, is that they are not without purpose. Isn't it great to know that when we go through difficulties - the pandemic times have produced some, all of us will walk through others - this has the potential to be producing some of the very most important things in us, to move us closer to the things that matter in eternity?
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and cheers to gratitude in its many forms.
