No Good

One of my daughter Ellie’s best friends is a young lady named Anastasia. Only a month older than Ellie, she and Ellie have become fast friends over the past few years. A few nights ago, Anastasia and three of her siblings stayed overnight with us. The next morning after breakfast and plenty of DVD watching, I took the kids outside to play.

Anastasia was drawn to our hula hoops. She’s actually quite good at hula-hooping. As she practiced, she would call out for me to watch her, and I always watched the neat tricks she did.

I should mention here that I am terrible at hula-hooping, and so are my kids. None of us can get the hoop to go around our bodies more than about half a time before it falls to the ground. So my kids are impressed that Anastasia can do well at something they can’t. It doesn’t seem to bother them that they can’t do the same thing; they’re simply happy for their friend, and content in their own abilities.

That’s exactly the reaction we should have when we see someone else with abilities that we do not possess. We should be happy God has chosen to bless that person in that way and remain content with the ways He has chosen to bless us.

Sometimes, however, we’re not happy for the person in question. Instead of rejoicing that she gets to enjoy one of God’s gifts, we become resentful that we don’t have that same gift. We may even take out our resentment on that person, allowing it to affect the relationship we could have had with her. And sometimes we carry it even farther, to the point where we think that if we don’t have that same gift, we’re nothing.

Precious mom, God does not love Anastasia any more than He loves my children just because she can do something they can’t. He doesn’t prefer her over them because she possesses an ability—which He gave her, by the way—that they don’t. And He doesn’t think any less of us or love us any less just because someone else has more or different gifts than we have.

It’s not like God gives abundant, spectacular gifts to those He loves, and the rest of us get whatever’s left over. He distributes gifts as He wills, according to what each person needs in order to be able to carry out God’s plan for his or her life. So the fact that you don’t have a particular gift or set of gifts simply means you don’t need it—not that you are less than someone else in any way.

Besides, you do have your own spectacular set of gifts, whether or not you recognize that they’re spectacular. Your gifts are amazing because they were hand-picked by God for you, in accordance with what He has planned for you. They were chosen with care and love by God Almighty and given specially to you and to no one else in exactly the same way.

With your gifts, you can bless others in a way that’s unique among every other way on earth. So be content with the gifts you do have, and look for ways to bless others with them, instead of wishing for what you don’t have.

If you’re no good at hula-hooping, who cares? God certainly doesn’t.

Hebrews 13:5—Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (NIV)