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The illogical profoundness of receiving

Emma Keenan

17/09/09

I was given a gift a couple of days ago, from a Nepalese friend who had just been home for a visit. She bought me a very beautiful and unique notebook. It is made of Nepalese handmade paper, which has been used in the mountain regions of Nepal for the past 1500 years. Apparently, the oldest available Hindu and Buddhist manuscripts are recorded on this paper, and it is still used for Nepalese government documents. It is a beautiful notebook. In fact, it is so beautiful that I am scared to use it. This is not a notebook to fill with flippant thoughts, in blue biro pen. No, this one must only be filled with the most profound of thoughts, in beautiful language, ideally written in fine black ink and in flowing script. For that reason, it is most likely that this notebook will join the collection of other beautiful notebooks that I have gathered up over the years, and keep in a special place on a shelf at home, waiting for that day when I will suddenly have a profound thought worthy of them.

It’s not that I don’t value the gift – quite the opposite. It’s because of how much I value it, that I’m afraid to misuse it or to ruin it. What if I made a mistake, and had to score something out! That’s no way to treat ancient Nepalese handmade paper! It’s a precious thing, to be treated with great care.

Or is it? Maybe what I’m actually doing is completely disregarding and devaluing my friend’s gift, by refusing to use it for the purpose she intended. I don’t think she gave it to me so it could gather dust on a shelf. I’m pretty sure she gave it to me in the hope that I would use it, and get pleasure out of using it – even if my thoughts aren’t all that profound.

I’m trying to get better at receiving gifts for what they are. On a 1-10 scale, I’m probably about a 6 or a 7 now, depending on my mood. I’d say I used to be about a 3. They say God loves a cheerful giver – well, I have no problems on that front. I like giving. I get a kick out of it. Maybe I like it a little too much – maybe it becomes too much about me, and not enough about the person I’m giving to. Maybe that’s another blog post. But receiving – I was rubbish at it. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like it undermined my independence and my autonomy. In receiving, it was like acknowledging that I couldn’t do everything by myself. Like maybe I needed some help with some stuff. I’m not talking about pretty notebooks now. I’m talking about bigger stuff. Like money. Or advice. Like a roof over my head. Help from my parents – that was a biggie for me. And sometimes stuff that was offered with the most innocent and genuine of intentions. Stuff that my heart secretly wanted, but I still couldn’t accept easily. Like friendship. Fellowship. Love. I thought that in accepting them, I might run the risk of becoming indebted, so it seemed logical to me just to keep things at bay. Keep people at bay. Keep God at bay. Keep a level head – stay logical, be rational. Maintain independence.

I met this man one time who has immense confidence in his relationship with God. I was at a friend’s house for farewell drinks, and he rocked up and turned it into a prayer meeting. He was a ‘rough round the edges’ kind of guy – he didn’t give us much choice in the matter, just announced that we were going to pray, so if anyone hadn’t received the Holy Spirit, to let him know so he could deal with that first, before we did any praying. Scared the wits out of me. I got singled out, and he started praying for me – that I’d receive the Holy Spirit, and start speaking in tongues. Then when he finished praying, in front of about 30 people, he told me to start speaking in tongues! I just stared at him, completely dumbfounded, and wondering how fast I could make it to the nearest exit. I couldn’t speak in tongues – that was ridiculous. It went against every natural fibre in my body. Surely I would know if I’d suddenly been imparted with this strange, holy language.

I could sense the guy was getting a little impatient with me, but I didn’t know what to do. And then he said something to me that has stuck with me ever since. He said, “Emma, your problem is that you are trying to figure this all out logically…God has His own kind of logic”. It wasn’t the clearest, most articulate argument I’d ever heard, but something clicked in me. It was like I suddenly saw all the connections. I didn’t want to give up my independence, and because of that, I was keeping everyone I knew at a distance, because friends can only hurt you when they get close. I couldn’t receive what people were trying to offer me because it would mean acknowledging that I needed them – that I couldn’t do everything by myself. And as for God – He scared me, the thought of this surprising, spontaneous, unpredictable God who isn’t bound by anything I can logically understand or explain, at least in the world’s definition of logic. My logic, and the logic of the world, told me to try to contain God – God’s logic tells me to change my thinking, and let Him transform my heart and my thinking. I couldn’t contain Him – which meant that the only way for us to be in relationship together was for me to allow Him freedom to do as He chose in my life. And it meant allowing Him the freedom to bestow His grace, His love and His gifts on me.

So I stopped trying to rationalise God. I stopped trying to fit Him into my idea of who He is, and allowed Him to be who He is. And I discovered that He is a God who loves to give good gifts to His children. He loves to bless. He loves to provide. For the next few years, I experienced uncountable occasions where He provided for me financially when I was at my most desperate. Ironic, given my difficulty in receiving, and letting go of my independence. Seemed that God wanted to really teach me something big. He wanted me to learn how to receive – and not to receive begrudgingly or with embarrassment, but to receive with joy. Lately, I’ve been on a different journey, and I’ve been learning to receive from God spiritually. I’m learning the value of spiritual gifts, and the joy of seeing them operating within a community of people. I’m learning more and more that there’s actually nothing I can bring to the table – that I am entirely dependent on God and His grace towards me. And I’m learning that when God gives me something, it’s not so that I can set it on the shelf to look pretty and get dusty. It’s for a purpose. He wants me to use it – get it nice and scruffy. He doesn’t mind if I make a mistake and have to scribble something out and start over. Because ultimately, He wants me to know freedom.

The joy of receiving. That’s been one of my ongoing lessons over the years. And will continue to be. Because I can never exhaust the limits of God’s grace and generosity towards me. Now that is a profound thought. I might just grab a blue biro and go scribble it in my new notebook.

Tags: Life, Made me think