What a Friend...

A little while ago, my family was driving to house church and my wife was talking about an upcoming shower for one of the ladies in our house church. Although she was very excited about the shower, she was disappointed that it would not be a surprise for her.

Lately, I had been reflecting on how emotions that we experience are very like those that God has. Since He created us in His image than it is very likely that we experience in emotions what He has already experienced emotionally. I realized how my wife, love to give surprises, but we hate receiving surprises. Well, we love receiving good surprises - especially if we don't about them in advance. We hate being told that there is a surprise for us and having to wait for it to be revealed. I believe that we hate being in the receiving position for two reasons. One, fear. We tend to fear that the surprise in store for us is not all that great. Two, it means we are not in control.

After my wife expressed her disappointment about her friend knowing about the shower, I wondered if God likes to give us surprises. I believe He absolutely does, but His surprises are always excellent!

To Give, or Not to Give...That is the Question

My wife and I were watching Dances with Wolves the other day and we came upon a scene that completely shocked me. It is the scene where Two Socks (the wolf in the movie) dropped off a dead rabbit and John Dunbar's door. The action struck me as odd. My first thought was 'why would this animal do this? There is no benefit to the wolf.' Unlike animation movies which make animals act with human tendencies, this is not a movie that was not doing that. I made a comment to my wife about that and she said that she remembered that her pets would regularly drop off prizes for their masters. It was usually a dead rabbit or something like that. This really amazed me! Was the act of giving in an animal's DNA? Was it an animal's instinct to give? Did God put the act of giving into all of His creation as instinct?

Humans, on a very basic level, are actually animals, but animals with souls. Having a soul allows us to choose our actions rather than act solely on instinct, but is our desire to give actually an instinct? I wondered... If giving is an instinct, than what is the act of NOT giving. Humans are the only species that (without external re-programming) can go against their instinct. Is it actually an act of will to NOT give? Perhaps that is why giving comes so easily and why to not give is considered wrong. Is act of not sharing a thought planted by the devil rather than a instinct? Perhaps that is why being greedy is so evil.

It made me reflect on what areas of my life I am choosing not to give...