Being Content

No Other Good Thing

It’s always fun to get an unexpected gift from someone. Whether it’s flowers sent to you by your husband, a “I saw this and thought of you” present from a friend, or an encouraging e-mail from a colleague, these unanticipated tokens have a remarkable way of lifting your spirits. You look at them and smile, because the nonobligatory goodness with which they are given reminds you of the sweetness of the relationship.

In an even deeper way, the good gifts God gives us can have a similar effect on us.. The rising sun in the morning, finding something you thought was lost, or a respite in the midst of busyness, can warm your heart and flood you with encouragement. However, just as our relationships would suffer if we demanded flowers, presents and e-mails, so our relationship with God suffers when we are so focused on what He’s capable of giving, that we lose sight of Him. As a song [affiliate link] written by Elizabeth Clephane (1868) states, “I ask no other sunshine than, the sunshine of His face.” In other words, we must realize that as wonderful as His good gifts are, they pale in comparison to the gift of Him.

How gracious is our Heavenly Father that He allows us to come to Him with our petitions and requests. But may we seek Him first and primarily, remembering that when we have Him, we need no other good thing.

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Growth

End-Result Prayers

If you were to take one of my classes, we would spend a lot of time talking about objectives. Objectives (as hopefully my students can tell you) are anything at which you want to aim effort. They are what you want to achieve and they let you know whether you’re being successful or not. We spend a lot of time talking about the desired end result at the beginning of the process, because this is what will drive our business.

As important as the end results are, sometimes I realize that I don’t take the same approach in my relationship with God. For instance, several weeks ago I was running behind schedule on my way to school and was worried that I wouldn’t get a parking spot on the main campus. As I took my request to God, I prayed that He would help me get to school faster. While this certainly wasn’t a bad prayer, it wasn’t an accurate one. My heart’s desire was a parking spot. I hadn’t asked that because I thought that the only way to get it was for me to get to school earlier. In other words, I thought I would let God do part of the work, and I could figure out the rest.

Now this is a rather innocuous example, but I’m afraid the symptom is rampant in many Christians’ prayers. We pray for one thing, not believing that God can or will give us what we really desire to ask for. We pray that God will help us along the way, but not that God will bring us to where we should be.

May we have increasingly have an end-result attitude in our prayer life believing that just like a Dad desires good things for his kids, so God desires to lavish good things on us (Matthew 7:11). May we not fool ourselves into thinking that we need only His assistance, and not His constant and purposeful intervention into even the most routine aspects of life. And, regardless of what our temporal goals may be, may our true desired end result always be that which most glorifies Him.

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