Good Gifts

If you had three wishes, what would you wish for? Would you wish for more wish, immortality, or perhaps earthly pleasures? If you were to ask this question in a secular setting and again in a Christian setting, you might receive two very different answers, even from the same person.

As Christians, we struggle with two very different desires: the desires of our fleshly selves and the desires of our spiritual selves. As selfish humans, our first wish would be to appease our flesh. But as Christians, we would first want to honor God.

When we ask the question of "three wishes," we usually do it in the context of a magical genie. However, we must realize that there is nothing  NOTHING!that we cannot ask God for. This does not mean that God will always answer the way we want Him to, but as His children we are able to ask Him for anything.

God wants to give us good gifts, but how He defines "good" and how we define it is sometimes different. We do not always know what is good for us, and we do not always desire what we should. As Thomas Aquinas writes, "When we say that good is what all desire, it is not to be understood that ever ind of good thing is desired by all; but that whatever is desired has the nature of good. And when it is said, 'None is good but God alone,' this is to be understood of essential goodness." Whether we realize it or not, God gives us good gifts, because He is good.

Living Life