God of Good Gifts

On the edge of the Promised Land, God started instructing His people about the gift they were going to receive. He set out the parameters of who would inherit what land and where, and He made some rules about what happens to that land in the years to come. 

Several rules come out about the land: first of all, if a man only has daughters, his daughters get his portion of the land, but they can only marry their cousins so that the land stays in their family. Second, if you sell your land because you need the money, you always have the option of buying it back. And finally, in the year of Jubilee, your land comes back to you anyway. 

All of this was meant to ensure that no one who received God's portion ever lost it. So that what was holy and blessed would stay with the one it was meant to bless. 

For the glory of God. 

Sometimes, we diminish our gifts. We pretend that they aren't that big of a deal. Sometimes, we try to give them away. Sometimes, we try to pretend that our gifts are different, that they are more like someone else's gifts that seem more desirable to us...or to those around us. We do all kinds of things with the gifts that God has given us, except, it seems, to hold onto them. To cling to them. To love and cherish them. 

We might even sell them if we think it might benefit us in the short term.

But God reminds us that He gave us those gifts for a reason. Those gifts are part of His holy plan for us. They aren't meant to ever go out of our hands. They aren't meant to ever leave us. We aren't meant to leverage them for our benefit; we are meant to cling to them and enjoy them and let them flourish in our lives. Those gifts are ours.

For the glory of God. 

And that's why they keep coming back to us. I don't know about you, but in my life, the truth has been that I can never escape my gifts. I can never get away from them. I can refuse for a season to use them, selling out what should be my spot to someone else who seems to have a knack for it or a good idea, but my gifts always circle back to me. The things that God has given me and has put on my heart just keep coming back as opportunities and open doors, and I just can't ignore them or avoid them for very long. 

Then again, why would I want to?