Grateful & Generous Day 2

When our kids were younger, they begged to have another dog. We had an older dog that they loved desperately, but he was getting a little cranky and didn’t want to play anymore with them. The kids begged for a dog, and during Covid, we finally caved.

When we took the dog home, we had two very different responses. Though all our kids were excited, two of the three were enamored by the dog. Playing with him. Hugging him. Fighting over who got to hold him, while our oldest turned from the puppy, looked to us and thanked us with a big hug.

The reality of our lives is that so often, we pray for blessings, and then we turn the blessings that we prayed for into our idols.

In Exodus 3:22, God gives instruction for leaving Egypt.

22 Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters.

Which was a strange set of instructions for the israelites, considering they were slaves in this land, begging for salvation, but we can see in Exodus 12 that they do follow the instruction, and not only did God rescue them from the slavery, they left the land wealthy. The Lord intended for that wealth to be a blessing. However, we can see in their story, and often in ours, that we elevate the goodness of the gift over the goodness of the giver.

2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

In Exodus 32:2-4 they took that same gold that God sent them out of the land with, and created an idol from it. God is a good father. He wants to bless us, but we need to remember that the goodness of the things that God will give us, will NEVER exceed the goodness of God himself.

God help us to remember your goodness. Help us to not just be glad for the gift, but grateful for the giver. Help us to want the relationship with you more than the gifts themselves. As we go through our week, help us to find a multitude of what we would normally overlook, and see it as a beautiful blessing from the God who loves us.