Merry Ninth Day of Christmas— Responding to God’s Gifts Part 3

As discussed Saturday, scripture and experience tell us that we should respond to God’s gifts with thoughtful gratitude. That likely pleases God, just as we are pleased when our kids appreciate things we do for them.

OK, so how do we do that? A close reading of the scriptures considered Saturday (Exodus 15:1-21, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Luke 1: 5-25, 57-79 ) suggest four dynamics.

First, the folks receiving the blessings gave real thought to what God delivered them from. They didn’t just say “whew, I’m glad that’s over,” and put it out of their minds. Instead, they reexamined the tough spots they experienced in light of what God had done for them. Exodus 15:9, 1 Samuel 2:3.

Second, those folks considered what God’s intervention revealed about Him. That lead the Israelites to better appreciate God’s power. Exodus 15:2-3, 6-8, 11-13. It helped Hannah better understand His justness and concern for the weak. 1 Samuel 2:2-8. John the Baptist’s father came to more fully appreciate God’s faithfulness. Luke 1:72-73, 78.

Third, they thought about how the blessings God just delivered cleared the way for future blessings.  Exodus 15:14-18, Luke 1:74-78.

Fourth, their doing those things magnified God’s original blessings. Countless others have learned about God via scripture’s description of their actions.

We experienced something like that in the garden last year.  Our blessing was a mechanical seeder. We messed up the seeding of our spring crop, and God intervened by prompting us to get the seeder.  That wasn’t as dramatic as parting the Red Sea, but it increased production and allows us to do much more in much less time.

God lead us through the four dynamics discussed above. We more fully appreciated the problem God solved by seeing the contrast between our anemic spring crop and the lush crops that followed; we won’t repeat the mistake that revealed. The whole process lead us to more fully appreciate God’s faithfulness by providing (yet another) example of how He gets us what we need to get His work done. Our thinking about the seeder’s capabilities lead us to get better at what He’s called us to do; understanding its precision allowed us to intercrop radishes between rows of other, slower maturing, crops, significantly increasing production. All those things lead to greater blessings for others; there was more food for hungry folks and, who knows, maybe recounting these things will bless other folks in other ways.

Merry Seventh Day of Christmas—Responding to God’s Gifts Part 2

Another way we should respond to God’s gifts is by taking the time to appreciate their details. That is modeled in scripture and ratified by human experience.

Scripture provides multiple examples. Consider the Israelites’ response to the parting of the Red Sea.  Exodus 14 describes the tight spot they were in and how God delivered them. Exodus 15:1-21 describes their response: they recalled the details of what God had done, looked forward to the possibilities it opened up, and heartily praising God. We see a similar pattern in 1 Samuel 1 and 2. Hannah was going through humiliating times, sought God’s help, and He delivered her. She too responded by appreciating the details of what God had done and praising his very nature. 1 Samuel 2:1-10. That pattern is also illustrated in the circumstances of John the Baptist birth. John’s parents went through prolonged barrenness before his miraculous birth. Luke 1:2-25, 57-67. His father responded by detailing what God had done, looking forward to what those events could mean, and praising God’s nature. Luke 1:67-79. There is a common pattern in those responses, and the fact that scripture records it multiple times suggests that God really wants us to notice it.

The importance of that response is confirmed by our human experience. Think about times you helped your child out of a jam or gave her a gift. What pleased you the most? It was likely your child’s savoring the details of what she received and acknowledging that you were its source. My guess is that the same things bring the most pleasure to God. After all, He is our heavenly father. 

So what are the nuts & bolts of how we do that? We’ll consider that tomorrow.

Merry Sixth Day of Christmas — Responding to God’s Gifts Part 1

God really blessed us this past year. In June He provided about 20 middle and high school students who spent the better part of three days weeding, side dressing, Florida weaving, and tackling a number of big chores we had not been able to get to. He also, through a very diligent Eagle Scout candidate, provided us with a wonderful set of permanent compost bins, bins that are now full of next year’s compost. He blessed us with rich new relationships through the Tuesday Morning English Conversation in the Garden and Wednesday Evening work sessions. And of course, we gave us a good crop, about 8,700 Lbs. of produce. God’s graciousness was unmistakably on display.

So how do we respond to that, and to God’s blessings generally? Several things come to mind. They will be the subjects of this and the next several posts.

The first thing we ought to do is think about how we got here, and what we can learn from that progression. That response is described in scripture. God not only teaches us to look for lessons as we go through adversity (think James 1:1-5), He also tells us to look back and learn more once we have gotten through the tough times.

Think about the book of Deuteronomy. Israel had gone through a long period of hard travelling, but was poised to enter the promised land. What did God tell them to do? Look back and learn from the journey:

Remember how for these forty years the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the wilderness, so as to test you by affliction, to know what was in your heart: to keep his commandments, or not. 3 He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might know that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord. 4 The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years. 5 So you must know in your heart that, even as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord, your God, disciplines you. Deuteronomy 8:2-5

Consider our situation here in the garden. The 2014 and 2015 growing seasons were tough, and there were rough patches earlier this season, but God got us through them. And more than that, He used those difficulties to teach us things that have increased our fruitfulness. We have already drawn some practical and spiritual lessons from those difficulties, and I am sure that there are others. We (and others) will be blessed if we other make the effort to look for them.

We therefore need to prayerfully look back to see what God would have us learn. Write down what God shows you and send it back via a “reply” (but NOT a “reply all”) email. We can then use the insights from God’s previous blessings to set the stage for better service in the years to come.