| A Gift Too Late - #5557 |
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Download MP3 (right click to save) My wife really got a nice wedding gift for our friend. It's a beautiful little serving dish and some cut glass and some silver. It's one of those things people get only at their wedding, usually. I hope our friend likes it, if she ever gets it. See, she was married four years ago. We put her wedding present behind a chair to get it out of the way one day and we just found it recently, like four years later! We had planned to have our daughter take it to the wedding for us. Well, we totally missed the time that you should give a gift like that.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have a Word With You today about "A Gift Too Late."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Ephesians 4:29. It's excellent advice for improving and nurturing the relationships in your life. Here are God's words, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is useful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Now God says the only words you ought to be speaking to people are those that will build them up. Give those people around you build up encouragement, give them compliments and thank you's, and affirmations - the kind of things we usually say at their funeral. I remember when my dad died and I stood by that casket - and some wonderful, wonderful things were said about him. All these people had wonderful praise for the kind of man that my dad had been - unfortunately my dad couldn't hear any of them. I remember when I went to the memorial service for a 16-year-old young man who had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, and these big old football players who had been on the team with him went to the microphone one after the other and they just - well, they tearfully told what a great friend he'd been. They praised him for these many great qualities. I could only hope that they had said those when he could hear them. Why don't we give people their flowers when they can still smell them? Your family, your friends, your spiritual leaders, and your spiritual helpers - they need encouragement today and you have the power to give that powerful gift. Proverbs 18:21 says, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." You see, we can give people life sentences (because the tongue has the power of life) with our tongue, or we can give them death sentences; things that make them feel more alive like compliments, praise, encouragement, or things that make them feel like they're dying inside like put-downs and criticism. How are you doing giving those life sentences each day to the people in your world? Too often we make the same mistake that my wife and I made with the gift for that young bride; we waited too long to give the gift. Some of us have people who are gone now that we wish we could have back for like ten minutes just so we could tell them we love them, give them our appreciation. But we can't have them back. What we can do is determine that the people who are still here will hear our love, will hear our encouragement, will hear our apology or our forgiveness, will hear our praise, often! They need your gift right now. We never know how long someone will be here for us to give those emotional gifts; those gifts that could mean so much. The days are flying by and I'll bet there is someone whose gift maybe has been sitting on the shelf. Give them your love, now! Don't wait for the funeral to say what's in your heart. Share or Bookmark This Page       |
