This past Christmas, I received an incredibly special gift. Not to say that each gift I received wasn’t, in its own right, special; for nothing given out of a heart of love lacks significance. However this particular gift was given to me by a very dear friend. In fact, to call her “friend” somehow seems inappropriate because she’s so much more than that. God has entwined our souls with bonds of love that have afforded a God friendship to blossom and thrive into a spiritual sisterhood. But that’s fodder for another blog entry. J My point: The gift given to me by my “sister” is quite special to me because she created it for me as a demonstration of her love for me as well as a means of communicating what I meant to her. It’s a bracelet- beautiful, I might add- and it’s cleverly constructed of Scrabble tiles. On one side, the tiles are overlaid with beautiful ornamentation, but on the reverse side, they spell out a word: Treasure. She chose that word for me because, she said, that’s what I am to her. I knew she loved me; yet the tangible reminder of the sentiments of her heart touched a place deep in my heart.
Now, I’m not the only person my friend loves. In fact, love just seems to ooze out of her; that’s just part of her makeup. So there were others for whom she created works of art and heart as well. The gifts were the “same” in that they were all bracelets and all held a message from the giver to the recipient, yet they were all quite different. Each was created with a particular person in mind, each tailored toward the specific relationships they represented.
All of this came to mind recently as I was contemplating sibling rivalry. This is a condition that probably everyone has some familiarity with. Perhaps you’re a parent with children who constantly vie for the title of “Mom’s Favorite”. Or maybe you grew up with a sibling with whom you always felt the need to compete. It’s a part of our human nature, and it’s an area in which the enemy likes to meddle. Feelings of inferiority and insecurity and being not quite up to par can plague us and torment us to the point where we can’t at all see who we are because our vision is obscured by what we’re not.
Sibling rivalry isn’t confined to biological families. There’s an infestation of it within the Church- brothers and sisters in Christ viewing one another as rivals. We’re tempted to look at those receiving accolades; those who seem to be accomplishing mighty feats for God; those who seem to have God-favor dripping off of them… and compare ourselves based upon who we don’t believe we are or could be.
The fact of the matter is, God isn’t impressed by us nor our attempts at what we’ve deemed holy or righteous. Not that he’s against holiness and righteousness! But I think his heart must cry out, “You’re not getting it! I don’t want what you do; I want a relationship with you! I love you!!”
As my friend created the “same” gift for several people, so Jesus gave us the “same” gift when he purchased our freedom through his death. Likewise, we’re offered the “same” gift in that he desires relationship with each of us. But this is where “sameness” ends and wild uniqueness takes over! It’s very easy to watch how God seems to relate to others and, if we don’t see the same thing in our relationship, determine that something’s wrong with us or that he just doesn’t favor us as highly. Paul admonishes us in Galatians to “not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.” How my friend’s heart would have broken had I looked at the bracelet she lovingly created just for me and said, “Well, why didn’t you use the word ‘hope’ or ‘joy’ for me? Why am I 'only' a ‘treasure’? Why did you use these colors for me and those colors for her? Do you like her better?” The gift she gave to me was symbolic of her relationship with me and had no bearing on her relationship with anyone else. The gifts given to me by the Holy Spirit are because of his love relationship with me and with no one else.
I think one of the ploys of the enemy is to cause us to begin looking at who we are in light of who others seem to be because he knows that “it’s in Christ we find out who we are and what we’re living for.”
Shine your spotlight, Holy Spirit! Reveal to hurting hearts the source of their pain. Let every lie of the enemy be revealed for what it is. Raise up a generation of people who emanate your light and live loudly and in all the fullness of who they are in Christ.
