One of my treasured moments is remembering the look on my boys’ faces one Christmas morning as they crept down the stairs to sight of two new bikes with big bows in the living room. Their sweet faces lit up brighter than the tree. Their mouths dropped only to be recovered into huge grins. Little voices of “Thank you Mom and Dad!!” filled the room and my heart with such joy.
Our responses matter. How we respond when faced with trials and stressors, as well as how we respond to joys and moments of celebration, matters.
Awe that is revealed is the definition of awestruck. It’s when awe is revealed through someone’s response to something. When my boys saw those bikes and revealed the awe of joyful hearts, it blessed me and my husband, the gift givers.
How much more does it bless God when He gives to us and we reveal our awe through joy-filled responses?
James 1:17 tells us that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” We can so easily blame God for the trials and stressors and forget that the good and perfect gifts are from His hand. The gifts are for us to recognize and take personally.
What if my boys had come downstairs and hardly noticed the bikes, assuming they were for the neighbor kids? What if they had just walked around the bikes like they weren’t there and said nothing to their dad and me about it? What if they had not taken the gifts personally? They would have missed being awestruck and we would have been so grieved.
How disappointing that would be for us, after we bought, built and set up the bikes for their enjoyment!
How must the Father of lights who gives good and perfect gifts to His children feel when we barely notice the glorious pink sunrise or the bright harvest moon hanging in the sky! How disappointed He must feel when we don’t even pause to listen to the waves on the shore or the birds sing their early morning praises! God gives us good gifts all the time. Gifts that will leave us awestruck, if we will recognize them and take them personally.
I challenge you this Valentine’s weekend to let the Lover of your soul leave you awestruck!
Notice the gifts. Sometime they are in the form of answered prayer, sometimes in the form of a new bloom on the rosebush, sometimes in the scent of a coconut candle.
Take it personally. He is intentional and in control. Answered prayers, beauty in nature and treasured relationships are a gift from the Father not random coincidences. Receive those gifts from the hand of God.
Thank Him for the gifts as one who knows they are personal. Clap for God when He blesses you so undeservingly out of His amazing grace! Pause, close your eyes and say “thank you” as you would receiving a gift from a dear friend. He loves you far more than any friend.
Stand awestruck in the fact that God sees you, knows you and gifts to you what will bless you, even in the midst of the mundane or trying circumstances of life. You are loved.
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Great post Mariel! Love the analogy of the gifts we give our children and the gifts that God gives us. So true, if we do not recognize them as gifts how does that make God feel. Thank you for this instruction.
❤ grateful it blessed you
We serve an awesome God! I’m an outdoors person so I love being out in the nature where I see His handiwork everywhere! 🙂
Yes, we see His gifts everywhere outside, don’t we?
I love your description of what proper awe is, touched my spirit today.