Gratitude and credit to the Lord

I had someone come by our house a few months ago at 6:00pm with a fully cooked dinner, completely unannounced.

As I stood a little bit speechless on the doorstep with chaos behind me and a husband who still wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours, she said:

“I felt a prompting that you needed dinner tonight, and I just had to act!”

I graciously accepted the meal, thanked her profusely, and held my tears back until the door had shut.

I wanted to feel embarrassed that I hadn’t even started thinking about dinner yet, but I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love.

The sister who brought the dinner had redirected all the credit I wanted to give her to the Lord, and that made a big impact on me.

She didn’t want any of my praise that I tried to give her.

She was just following through on what I know to be one of her spiritual gifts— acting immediately and confidently on promptings.

In Joseph’s time, everyone was starting to recognize him as the dream interpreter.

The butler and the baker learned about him in prison.

And now the pharaoh was learning about his skill, too.

But each time that someone tried to label Joseph as the one who could interpret dreams, he was always quick to point out:

“It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” (Genesis 41:16)

God was the one giving Joseph the ability to do this.

I love two things about this:

First, that Joseph recognized where his gift came from.

But secondly, that he seemed to point this out to other people, too!

I think most of us know that we should be showing gratitude to God for our gifts and talents.

We try to redirect our minds to give God credit and to show how grateful we are.

But how often do we mention that to others?

YOU may know that your gifts come from heaven, but do other people know that you know that?

What a sweet and simple way to bear testimony.

The woman who brought me dinner wasn’t making me feel her love.

She was helping me to feel God’s love.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black