God will Grant Us Gifts We Aren't Ready For

God often grants us gifts our minds aren't ready for.

Why would God do that?

If you have children, maybe you can begin to understand it. Parents know kids can experience great growth when we allow them to discover they aren't ready for all they are wishing for.

A parent knows as new bike riders they aren't ready for that steep hill. You can see the scrapes coming before they happen. But we let them ride....

Not because we enjoy the crash, but because we want to build resilience.

And wisdom.

I do wonder, how many of us are given the relationships we long for even if we are nowhere near ready to receive them. Nothing changes life faster than the mind can process and keep up with than relationships.

I can remember praying often - God, please just send me the one.

I don't ever remember praying - God, please teach me how to keep the one you send. And yet, God sent anyway.

It's easy to believe the right one will come along with a love so strong that love alone will do the job of keeping. Turns out it's more complicated than that.

The bible shows us over and over again that gifts given to one without wisdom is the surest way to turn gifts into burdens.

Is that God failing me - or is that God revealing me?

One of the cruel parts of the other side of a broken marriage is often much is revealed that might have been helpful to know during the breaking. Things are often revealed in an aftermath that might have been quite useful in the middle of.

But, like our kids, sometimes the scrapes endured on that first trip down the hill on the bike aren't lessons about that trip. They are often the wisdom used to make the next trip a healthier and safer one.

And maybe the wisest take away - for me, at least - is learning to ask God to teach me how to keep the gifts I ask for. For in many cases, the value in the keeping is much grander than the value in the receiving. It's just that keeping is much harder to do.