During Bible study Thursday night, we discussed the parable of the generous landowner from Matthew 20:1-16. One of the lessons of this parable is that God is sovereign in all areas of life, and He has the right to dispense His blessings as He chooses. He often blesses those who we have deemed unworthy. How do we feel when someone whom we think is undeserving is blessed by God, and why do we think that way? We are all prone to make comparisons between ourselves and others, and the natural conclusion is that we are "better" and therefore more deserving of God's favor. Our comparisons cause us to have an ungrateful or resentful spirit toward God, who generously blesses us without regard to our merit. That is His nature.
I shared with the ladies how God revealed this sinful attitude of my heart this week. The Rescue Mission Auxiliary held its annual client style show on Wednesday. There are two auxiliary members (who happen to be sisters) that I have had to bar from doing volunteer work because of past experience. When they come to the mission, several of us are "on alert" to watch their actions closely. These ladies came to auxiliary this week and brought their elderly aunt with them. As part of the program, we held drawings for 5 gift items. I mixed the drawing slips, and we began pulling out names. The first name drawn was one of the sisters, and I immediately thought "aaarrrgh, not her!." A couple other ladies' names were drawn, and then the last two drawn were the names of the other sister and the aunt. I admit that I wanted to put those names back in the bag and redraw, but that would have been too obvious. My heart attitude was, "These ladies don't deserve to win. How could it happen that out of the sixty people present, they all win gifts?" But the Holy Spirit rebuked me with the truths of this parable. God is sovereign even over gift drawings, and He chose to bless those ladies in that way according to His perfect will. Lesson learned.
No comments:
Post a Comment