Can I trust you?
Last month Ellie had her 6th birthday party with around 30 kids. She had a feast of pressies from her friends. We had a big day on that day, and by the end of the day while opening those presents, the baby got very tired and couldn't wait any longer. So before I was able to clean up and put away the gifts, I just left them with Ellie and Jamie and I went to put the baby to sleep.
It just happened that it seemed lots of kids this time decided to give Ellie things like clikits, beads, doll's clips,etc. with countless little bits and pieces. And they opened everything without me! So when I came out after baby went to sleep,it was a disaster: there were hundreds of clikits, beads,clips from different packages mixed together lying on the floor. "Oh, my dear!" that's the only thing I could say.
Two days ago, we had another party for Jamie. This time I've learned the lesson. "No, you can't open everything at the same time. Pack one up before you can open another one." And for the following days, "Just play one thing at a time! put one back before you take another one out!" and I watched them so that they would play with certain toys for a good time, like if they want to play the art set, then I want them to finish a picture rather than just have a bit of scribble, making a bit of mess and throw away. The baby had a bit of hard time. She just wanted to get into everything. But she's too little, there're only a few things she could play with, other things, she might eat them(little tiny bits and pieces) or she might make a big mess(like the art sets).
Interestingly, as I've been thinking about spiritual gifts these couple of days, all these little details speak vividly into my spirit.
God gives us spiritual gifts out of His love. They're for us to enjoy and to bring God the glory. But sometimes He restrains us from them for various reasons: it could be we're too young, not capable of handling them properly(like the baby might eat the little pieces); we can't understand properly; Our maturity level is not enough(like the baby is just not mature enough for the art set: she'll suck the paint!); Or, it could be we're mature enough, but our discipline is not enough, like Ellie can play with the clikits pretty well, but she can't be bothered packing up one before she opens another one, and got all the different packets mixed together). The more we grow, the more we're disciplined, the more we can be trusted with the spiritual gifts. If God gives us all the spiritual gifts without any restriction, they can actually harm us and will not bring glory to God. The Bible says that we should earnestly seek spiritual gifts(1Corinthians 14:1). A lot of people are seeking earnestly, but they neglect the discipline and the training that's also needed and required.
I'm very blessed to be in a church right now that the senior pastors have a very high level of annointing in various spiritual gifts(the strongest one might be prophesying), and trainings are available and provided for different levels of faith. Even children are trained and taught about spiritual gifts according to their age maturity level.
Sunday, December 07, 2003
