The Dark Side of Gifts
Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. — Psalms 139:23
He was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. — 2 Corinthians 12:4
Author
Dr. Roberto Miranda
Summary: Every gift from God can have a dark side: if we are not careful, our achievements and abilities can fuel pride, self-sufficiency, and intolerance. In his severe mercy, God may allow afflictions and failures that counteract these distortions and lead us to humility, mercy, and dependence on his grace. Paul’s extraordinary revelations could have exalted him, but his persistent thorn kept him aware of his frailty and need for God, thus protecting his life and ministry. We should therefore ask, with fear and trembling, that God examine our hearts and prune our gifts so that they may grow in a healthy way and bear lasting fruit for his glory and our blessing.
Every gift has a dark side. Every endowment from God, if we are not careful, can become the basis for a terrible fall or a great humiliation. In His severe mercy, God often humbles us and deals with us preventively, so that our gifts do not become a source of failure for us.
An interesting illustration of this principle is provided by the life of the apostle Paul. We have already seen in another context how Paul’s famous thorn was part of the mechanism through which God uses negative circumstances in our lives to sanctify us and make us more like Christ. That same phenomenon can also be analyzed in light of the subject we are discussing. At times, life’s afflictions and failures can be used by God to balance and counteract the distortions that gifts create in the believer’s personality and character. The gifts and triumphs of ministry can lead to pride, self-sufficiency, or intolerance toward the weak. The thorns God allows in our lives can serve as an antidote and direct us toward humility, mercy, and continual dependence on God.
God granted Paul extraordinary spiritual experiences and revelations, so great that at times he was forbidden to share them in the human realm. That revelatory gift, which enabled Paul to write two-thirds of the New Testament and made it possible for him to hear “inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak (II Cor. 12:4),” could easily, given the apostle’s personality, have led him to become proud and to think more highly of himself than was proper. To keep this from happening, God sent him “a thorn,” a persistent spiritual affliction that forced him to remain frail and humble and constantly acknowledge his need for the grace of God:
In other words, in His severe mercy, God did not allow Paul’s gift to exert its harmful effect and become a stumbling block in his life and ministry. Rather, He provided him with an artificial means, a humiliating condition that would serve as a counterweight to his extraordinary spiritual endowment. God’s preventive intervention kept the dark side of the gift Paul had received from manifesting itself and allowed the anointed apostle to carry out his ministry without the spiritual contamination that would have impoverished it.
In Paul’s case, David’s beautiful petition in Psalm 139 was fulfilled:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts;
24 And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
God “searched” and “tried” Paul and indeed “saw” that there was a certain “wicked way” in him—in this case, a certain inclination toward pride. In His mercy, God imposed a spiritual discipline on the apostle that would keep him humble and guide him in the “everlasting way,” that is, in the perfect will of God, far from the possible accusations of Satan that could result from an arrogant and presumptuous attitude.
With fear and trembling, ask God to prune your gift so that it may continue to grow healthily, bearing fruit for many years for His glory and your blessing.