The previous post discussed the two opposite ways we can receive God’s gifts. One one hand, God’s gifts can (ironically) lead us to turn from God, as we cherish the gift and neglect the Giver. On the other hand, we can receive God’s gifts in a way that draws us closer to him. We don’t devalue the gifts in this option. Rather we properly value them, bringing us joy and God glory.
But How? Two Ideas to Keep in Mind
Many of us understand these two options with God’s gifts. In the Old and New Testament God teaches that his gifts can either lead to idolatry or worship.
The question that takes rigor is to ask: How do we receive them in such a way that draws us nearer to him? We know his gifts can lead us down opposite paths. But how do we receive them for his glory and our good?
Do we need to stop everything we’re doing during every little blessing from God and consciously direct ourselves his way in prayer? Do we, for example, have to stop laughing with our friends so that we can pray and thank God for the laugh? I don’t think so. God didn’t design us to work this way.
Do we need to downplay his gifts? Do we need to try to focus instead on more “spiritual” things such as salvation, Christ, the gospel, and the glory to come? Yes and no. Yes: “Set your minds on things above” (Colossians 3:1); Christ is better than anything here (Philippians 3:7-8). But also, no: Downplaying his gifts will rip him, the Giver, of due glory (and us of the joy of receiving his gifts).
Then how?
We can strive to keep two broad ideas in mind as we live a life loaded with God’s gifts. As we do so, I think we’ll be surprised how much God’s various gifts can lead us into more fellowship with him.
1. Be Convinced That Everything Comes From God
First, we must be convinced that everything comes from God, the Giver. If we want to take the gifts of God as allurements into deeper relationship with him, this is a theological conviction we must have: everything is from him.
Why is this important? How does this connect with drawing nearer to God through his gifts? Because if we don’t realize all is from him, then when a gift comes we might easily fall into the forsaking path because we won’t see his action anywhere in the gift. We might think we deserve the gift (like a promotion at work). We might assume the gift is random (like a random check in the mail). Or we might think the gift is insignificant (like an enjoyable ice-cream sandwich). All these stem from a disbelief that every little thing comes from God.
But if we recognize that everything is from God—may we remember that the Bible literally says “all things are from him” (Romans 11:36), that he is stunningly sovereign—then we can begin to see that no good thing is merited, random, or insignificant. We know all is from God. “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Such a conviction sets us up to receive God’s gifts in the way that draws us closer to him. Knowing that everything is from him, whenever something occurs—big or small, seemingly significant or insignificant—we can more easily run down the path of intimacy because we know he’s involved “in any and every circumstance” (Philippians 4:12). We start to believe that we truly do live in a “fathered world: (as Tim Chester says multiple times in his excellent book Enjoying God): We know that our loving Father literally controls all things, and knowing this we can begin to recognize how he’s wooing us through his gifts all the time.
So first, in order to receive God’s gifts for his glory, rather than idolatry, we should strive to recognize that everything is from him.
2. Praise God as You Take Time to Recognize His Gifts
Second, with the foundation of our sovereign-Father in place, we can then periodically take time to consciously recognize his gifts (large and small) and praise him. We can do this 1) throughout the day—trying to get into a habit of stopping every once a while and thinking of how God’s been good to us, and 2) in specific times of prayer—accompanied with written or mental lists recounting God’s blessings.
But it’s important to note that as we recount his gifts like this, praising him is the ultimate goal. Should we thank him? Absolutely. But even more so, our goal is to praise him. We were made for this. What is the distinction between giving thanks and praise and why does it matter? C.S. Lewis is insightful here. Notice how he differentiates between praise (or “adoration”) and thanksgiving (or “gratitude”). I think it can impact us greatly as we strive to properly receive God’s gifts. Lewis writes,
“I have tried…to make every pleasure [or gift] into a channel of adoration [or praise]. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it?…Gratitude exclaims, very properly: ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says: ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun. If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window—one’s whole cheek becomes a sort of palate—down to one’s soft slippers at bed-time.” (C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 120-121).
Lewis writes that each gift from God is not only an opportunity for us to thank God (“one must of course give thanks”), each gift also is an opportunity for us to understand the wonders of who the Giver is—to travel “back up the sunbeam to sun.”
This is incredibly helpful as we seek to receive God’s gifts in a way that draws us closer to him. Thanking God is great and biblical; but praising him leads us to fall more in love with him—with who he is revealed to be in the gift. If my wife were to give me a gift and I were to thank her, that’d be fitting and right. But if I were to analyze the gift and see more of her loveliness in the gift—in why she chose it, how she thought of it, etc.—then I’d be drawn more to her than if I simply were to give thanks.
The same is for us in our relationship with our God. As we praise God for certain gifts, we explicitly draw near to him, the Giver. We think about who he is as the Source of the gift. And so, making it a habit to praise God (not merely thank him) sets us up to regularly behold who the Giver is. We situate ourselves so that we not only see him as the one who gives, but that we see who he is as the Giver. And the more we see, the more we’ll love him; and the more we love him, the more we’ll long to see him as revealed in his gifts—the more his gifts will draw us closer to him.
It Matters How We Receive God’s Gifts
So, there are two main options for receiving God’s gift. The two paths are opposites. And since one leads us closer to God and one closer to him, and since only one path gives us lasting joy, then how we receive gifts is no small matter.
At stake isn’t merely right verses wrong, thankfulness versus ungratefulness. At stake is the glory of God and our daily joy in him. May we not think that receiving God’s gifts rightly is a mere duty, like when you were a kid and someone gave you a lollipop and your mother commanded you to say “thank you.” Our communion with God is affected, and so is our daily joy in him. We can either see him as the one who controls everything (the large and the small), or we can fall back on thinking we deserve the gift, or that it’s random or insignificant. We can either praise God when we receive a gift—beholding who he, the Giver, is—or we can fixate on the gift itself and be lose the opportunity through the gift to be more enamored with the Giver. In receiving God’s gifts, we have the opportunity to shrivel or to savor, to fixate on the finite gift or to praise the infinitely precious God.
May we, then, receive God’s gifts in such a way that we draw closer to him. And let’s do this by seeing him as the Giver of everything (the large and the small gifts) and by praising him for who the gifts reveal him to be.
