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. (James 1.17)
Too often with age comes cynicism. Decades of experience seem to prove that day is followed by night, pain is inevitable and heartbroken idealism leads to pessimism. Those who hope the most, dream the deepest and care with their whole souls are often the ones devastated by human systems and the shadowy manipulations of others. From the diving board of youthful idealism they are cruelly pushed down into the deep-end of cynicism.
No one is exempt for the injuries of this world. Trials and temptations come for all men, women and children. With knowledge of how things could be comes sadness. With past pain comes the propensity to forecast it into future trauma. And in an effort of intense self-protection, we build a barbed wire fence of cynicism around our hearts. We go stumbling along in our desire to stay steadfast before the Lord, always on the look out for the next variation on the old pains.
May this be where we meet Jesus today! Not on the happy hills of naive inexperience but in the twisted and dark caverns of our growing cynicism. James reminds us that every good and perfect gift comes from God, the Father of lights. The creator of the sun and the stars. The designer of the moon and its reflective spin around the globe. No matter how dark and shadowy the world becomes, as men build corrupt systems and people oppress one another, their is no darkness in our Father.
Jesus is our divine prism, the light from the Father is made visible to us through Jesus. The Father’s light is not changed, not darkened or hidden. In Jesus, the light of the Father is revealed in living color. Jesus reveals God’s invisible and everlasting love wherever we are today. Jesus calls us to believe with expectancy for the rushing wind of His Spirit. Jesus our divine prism, offers us hope for our cynicism, wisdom in the midst enigmatic times and joyous light in the dark night of the soul.
Jesus, let me see the good things and every perfect gift raining into my life from the Father with new eyes. Let me rejoice, surrendering my ashes for His beauty, my darkness for His light.