Every good endowment 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.
James 1:17
One of the most existential questions one can reflect on is “Where does goodness come from?” There are three answers that I can come up with—ourselves, others or God. Everyone has had times when everyone who is surrounding us seems to be treating us poorly. We’ve all had those moments where it seems like there is nothing good going on in the world. If goodness comes from others, there would be periods of life where goodness was absent.
Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone does things that they know are not good. We all have moments we are ashamed of, or wish we could have back. If goodness comes from ourselves, then in those times when we are not good, there would be period of life where goodness was absent.
If goodness comes from others, then we are dependent on them to come through for us. If goodness comes from us, then we are dependent on ourselves. And because we are all human beings living in a fallen world, we know that we are going to fall short on goodness, and others will fail us as well.
Goodness comes from God. In James 5:17, we read that “every good endowment and every perfect gift is from Above.” If something is good, its genesis is from God. Let’s say that we have wealth, that has been gained in an honest way, through hard work. The hard work is the result of a job. The job is the result of a talent. And the talent is something given to us by God.
So much of what we have and who we are is given to us by God—our talents, our personality, our gifts, our uniqueness. He is the giver of everything that is good.
On the flip side, if something is not good, it is not from God. For instance, let’s say we have a headache, which is the result of not sleeping enough, which is the result of staying up too late and watching a movie. The source of the headache did not come from God. It came from ourselves.
Let’s say something bad happens to us, like someone crashes into our car, because they were driving too fast. The source of our angst does not come from us, but from someone else’s bad decision.
Other bad things come from disasters of nature. And other things, like illnesses where there is no explanation, come from tainted air, tainted water and bad gene pools.
I believe that if it’s not good, it is not from God. And if it is good, it is from God. Let’s focus on the good that comes from God. If we believe everything we have that is good is from God, then what is our response to the goodness of God? Is it entitlement, self-congratulations, or gratitude to God? It is very easy to feel that reward is the entitlement we get from hard work. We often forget to play back the string to the work is possible because of a talent, and that talent is a gift from God. It is the same thing with self-congratulations. We pat ourselves on the back for accomplishment, or we look for reward from others for accomplishment, and we tend to forget that whatever we accomplish that is good traces its origins back to God.
When we have a posture of gratitude, when we see the good things in life as a blessing from God, it changes how we approach things. I woke up this morning. That is a good thing. And that good thing is a gift from God. Thus, with this day I have been gifted from God, I should do something that glorifies God. I have hands that currently are typing on my keyboard. The fact that they work and work quickly is a gift from God. Thus, with these hands and with this message, I should glorify God. We all know that it is very easy to go through a day and not think about God, or to use our breath or our hands to do things that are sinful. The challenge is to see good things as blessings, and to give gratitude to God for His blessings on us.
If God has blessed us with good and perfect gifts, then we should be thankful to God and we should show that by blessing others with our gifts in a wholesome and (as close as we can get to) perfect way.
This phrase of the prayer follows the petition for peace for the whole world and everyone in it, and recognizes that the gift of peace is one of the gifts of God. And as the prayer starts to reach its conclusion, it affirms for us that EVERY good and perfect gift is from Above, from God.
O Lord, bless those who praise You and sanctify those who put their trust in You. Save Your people and bless Your inheritance. Protect the whole body of Your Church. Sanctify those who love the beauty of Your house. Glorify them in return by Your divine power, and do not forsake us who place our hope in You. Grant peace to Your world, to Your churches, to the clergy, to those in public service, to the armed forces, and to all Your people. For every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from You, the Father of Lights and to You we send up glory, and thanksgiving, and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Everything that is good is from God!
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