I'm back, Jesus. Back to pick up where we left off yesterday. Jonah was on the shore, having come to a moment of clarity in the darkness within belly of the fish, and saw perhaps for the first time the source of true salvation.
And we left Bill W. in his own darkness, 'cornered at last,' with a loneliness and despair which he could hardly put into words as he realized alcohol had become his master.
And I was attempting to tie two meeting topics together. We discussed the first - seeking an answer to the ever-present question of where you are when things are their darkest. And you showed me that you are not only present with us in those moments, but almost embodying the very circumstances themselves. It's a gift of hardship that often is the only remedy for the disease of self that afflicts us all.
Today, we're looking at the second topic - how in some way you gift each of us uniquely, and in our immediate world there are multiple opportunities to use them in ways others can't. It's a clear echo of Paul's words in his second letter to the Corinthians:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
It's the same thing Bill W. wrote about in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:
But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished. That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful - these are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.
When I think of gifts, I think of something wrapped neatly in shiny paper, tied in ribbons, and topped with a bow. Something that whets an appetite, elevates anticipation and, even in its still-wrapped state brings one to the edge of the seat with excited expectation.
But perhaps it's helpful to separate a 'gift' from 'being gifted.' One is external, something we receive, something offered that we grasp and hold.
The other manifests itself in a change that seems to happen inside us, and becomes something that, ironically, only reveals its worth when its given away.
Both Jonah and Bill W. were 'gifted' in their darkness. In the darkness inside the fish, Jonah saw more clearly the responsibility he was given, and how determined God was to get a message of repentance even to Israel's more fearsome enemy. And in the darkness of his sense of failure and hopelessness, Bill W. received grace he never thought possible, and was immediately driven to share his own version of 'good news' to a million alcoholics who had no escape from the prisons that held them fast.
And, Jesus, I've been in both of those places - the darkness I've reached many times when I hid from you, and the despair where I landed when trying to find answers other than you. And the light that shone on me in those moments has in no small way gifted me to be able to shine that light for others.
And I'm not unique; I'm like everyone else.
But I am uniquely gifted.
As is, oddly enough, everyone.
Help us all to find the way that we've been gifted. Give us clear vision and understanding to see that the gift we have only has worth when it's passed on to others.
And when we wonder where you are when things seem darkest, give us faith and trust that we are exactly where we are supposed to be at that moment.
With you.
Amen.
