God's Gracious Gifts

Today in church, Pastor Ken spoke from Ephesians 2 on the topic of God's grace. I absolutely love to think of the variety and depth of God's grace, as may be indicated by the title of my blog. Needless to say, it was an impactful message, as is any focused on the character of God. I found this excerpt tonight from a Radiant article from last May, and I thought this related very well to what we meditated on in the service this morning. Enjoy:

I have not been grateful to God for the “gift” of my recent medical problems. Just like that Christmas, I think I deserve something more—I'm “too young” to be worried about melanoma, and besides, I've never been into tanning. I eat some tofu and visit a gym twice a week, so what I expect are good prognoses and a decent body.

But gifts aren’t things you earn. Sometimes they’re confusing. Despite the myths about Santa bringing better toys to the good kids, we don’t give Christmas presents to each other as a reward for being well-behaved for another year. The pillow from Tim wasn’t an indicator of his satisfaction with me, and a cluster of precancerous cells isn’t a report card from God.