God: The Giver of All Good Gifts

Dear Faithful Reader,
 
I know that the blog has been strangely silent for many weeks. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the blog or forgotten you! Life has many seasons and some prove to be more all-consuming than others. But God’s faithfulness, goodness, and love remains the same, and the encouragement and life-giving spiritual food we need is always readily available in His Word. So I hope and pray that even though I haven’t been sending out my regular devotional thoughts and words of encouragement you are still being encouraged and blessed through time in God’s Word.

​God is love, and on this Valentine’s Day it is my prayer that His love for you would be made more evident and deeply felt. The more I walk with God and grow in my relationship with Him, the more amazing I find His unconditional love. Friends, we will never reach the end of God’s love nor will we be able to fully understand and know how vast and boundless it is. We could spend a lifetime exploring and never come to the end!
 
Over the last few days, as I’ve been meditating on God’s incredible love, James 1:27 keeps coming to mind.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

​Not only does God show us His love through the giving of His Son, but He also showers us with good gifts. In fact, James makes it very clear that every good and perfect gift that we receive in life comes straight from the Father who is not fickle or prone to mood swings but is constant in His love and desire to richly bless us. Even in the midst of life’s hardest seasons, God remains the same and is a Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. Note that the verse preceding this one in James 1:27 are about trials and suffering. Therefore, no matter what life season you’re in, know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever and from His hand comes every good and perfect gift. We just need to wait upon Him and trust that He has our best interest in mind.
 
This verse has specifically been resonating with me because I recently got engaged to an amazing, God-fearing young man who has shown and taught me God’s love in a whole new way. He has been God’s biggest gift (aside from new life in Christ) and blessing to me. As I prepare to get married, I am constantly in awe of God, His love for me and His good plans and purposes for those who trust Him. It has been an amazing journey of faith and watching God work, and I can’t wait for what God has in store.
 
With that being said, the blog will continue to be more silent and posts will be somewhat hit and miss, but I plan on picking things back up and resuming regular posts later on in the year. I have not abandoned this blog but will be back when I settle into my new season of life.
 
In the meantime, I want to encourage you all that no matter what life season you’re in this Valentine’s Day—single, married, separated, widowed—God loves you more than you could ever comprehend. His thoughts and intentions for you are only good and every good thing you have received is from His hand. This is a truth that I am reminded of each day as I go about my daily life and see the sparkle of my engagement ring, which reminds me not only of my fiancé’s love but God’s. For just like a man gives a woman a diamond ring as a promise of his constant love, so also God has given us an even bigger gift to remind us that we are never alone and that He is with us: the Holy Spirit.
 
Last year I wrote a post on this concept titled "Holy Spirit: Our Divine Engagement Ring" and now that I am engaged to be married, the truths in it have become more profound. God loves us beyond all that we could ask for imagine and while human love is amazing and wonderful, it pales in comparison for the love that God has for us. Therefore, on this Valentine’s Day bask and glory in the rich, unending love God has for you!

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
~Ephesians 3:14-20