Gifts

 Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the LORD tested Joseph’s character.  Psalm 105:19

If I were to ask you as to what you would call a "gift from God," how would you answer? When we think of His gifts we usually have them in a very positive light. Gifts, according to our definition, are things that bless us and make us happy. In fact, gifts and blessings are something we desire and almost always see as good things. We don't see how His blessings could ever come in the form of something we didn't want or a person we didn't desire in our life.....but God does.

Psalm 105:19 is speaking of Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob. God had shown him in a dream that he would be a ruler over even his brothers. He received this eagerly, bragging to his brothers about it. This earned him their hatred and they eventually sold him into slavery, with his ending up a slave in Egypt. His journey through next decade plus took him from slavery in an Egyptian household to a cell in an Egyptian prison. Through it all, he was used of God, and through it all, he grew in wisdom, discernment, understanding, and most of, in godly character. In the Father's timing, he was released through prison and because of who he'd become as man, was made second only to Pharaoh himself in power and influence. A terrible drought struck his homeland and God used him to eventually deliver his family and people. God's promise came to pass in his life, but it's doubtful that he'd have ever chosen the road he'd walked in order to get there. Most likely, neither would we. Yet, there is no doubt that as he looked back on his life events, he could see the Father's hand and blessing on all of it. Everything that had happened really was a gift because He used it to make him able to receive the promise and to enter into his destiny. God's gifts and blessings can often come in very ugly wrapping.

In the midst of our unwanted circumstances and dealings with very difficult people, what is our general view of it all? Aren't we most likely to complain, plead with Him to get us out of it, or them away from us? Is our interest most centered on it all just ending, and as soon as possible. We grin and bear it until it's done, and when it is done, we're really no different than when it all began. We missed the gift and blessing He had for us in all of it. What blessings and gifts might we be missing in our circumstances and with those difficult people right now?

Joseph never wanted slavery and he certainly didn't desire the prison cell, but he would never have become the ruler he was without them. He couldn't have been the man who could inhabit that place. His circumstances and the difficult people all along the way really were the Father's gifts to him, because they were used to shape him to His Father's purposes. He never rebelled in the midst of it all. He yielded himself to God and to what was happening in his life. And, he trusted his God in the midst of it all. He never forgot his dream and His promise in it. He never took his eyes off the promise or the God who gave it.

Gifts in ugly wrappings. He will send them. Will we, we you, receive them? Will you trust Him as He unwraps them before you. Will you believe that He will use even these things and people to further His work in you and through you? There have been several intensely dark times in my life where I have walked through "the valley of the shadow of death." I never wanted to, but I came to realize His gift to me was to know that I could walk through and reach the place where He meant to take me. And I realized that the shadow of death may be able to frighten me, but a shadow can't hurt me. Ugly circumstances, difficult people, He uses them to bring to the surface the things in us that hinder our walk, lessen our love, and keep us from growing more and more in the image of Christ. Jesus Christ is our ultimate gift, and anything that shapes us more and more into His likeness is a gift. Oftentimes those gifts will come in ugly wrappings. Will we receive them? Or will we reject the gift?

Blessings,
Pastor O