ALL GOOD GIFTS COME FROM ABOVE

A REFLECTION FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

I've been a bit under the weather this past week, and haven't been able to keep up with the website here as well as I would have liked.  All will be back to normal this coming week, so please hang in there as I pay a little extra attention to my health.

We're reminded in this week's Epistle that all good gifts and all perfect gifts come from above, but have you noticed how slow we are to thank God for them?  And yet we can't wait to blame God for the bad things that come our way.  What terrible children we are of this good Father in heaven, who seeks only good for us.  Nothing could be further from the truth to think that the evils in our live are sent to us by him.

Take illness for example.  We perceive it as an evil, which obviously in a certain sense it is.  It's certainly not a cause for rejoicing.  But is it really all bad, or an opportunity for God, and for ourselves, to draw a greater good from it?

Illness stems from the nature that God created, a good nature, designed especially for us and our physical and spiritual needs.  And illness,while it does not cater so much for those physical needs, it nevertheless can provide a very useful opportunity to draw many spiritual benefits from it.  We can, for example, offer up our pains and sufferings to God in reparation for our sins.  We are encouraged in times of illlness to a higher degree of  patience and perseverance in enduring our sufferings. And we have a little more time to contemplate the important things of life (and death of course), to remind ourselves of what should be our priorities in our otherwise busy lives.

So while we remember to thank God for the good gifts that come from him, let's change our outlook a bit on the bad things.  Some of them aren't so bad after all, and we should give some thought to thanking God for them too.