a sweet reminder

It is Tuesday and I am still just getting into this week's Bible Lesson on Reality. What struck me this morning is from the second section. It is James 1:17. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning".  This was one of the first Bible verses that resonated with me over 40 years ago when I first began to study Christian Science.

At that time I was expecting my first child and was starting to read the Bible Lesson each week. This verse was in one of those lessons. I loved the beginning of it because it confirmed one of the things I was finding in my embrace of this (new to me) religion. I was drawn to Christian Science because I was looking for a way to worship God as I believed Him to be, my Good Shepherd. The only thing I was familiar with in the Bible was Psalm 23 and that summed up what I believed. So imagine my delight, as I struggled through reading Science and Health for the first time, and came to Mrs. Eddy's spiritual interpretation of that Psalm. There was the answer to my search. A loving, tender Shepherd.

So when I first read the above citation from James I focused on the first part only. Here was confirmation of what God is doing for me and for everyone else. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. All these years later I now own many different translations of the Bible. The New Living translations says "Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from our God our Father....He never changes or casts a shifting shadow".  In the Message Bible is says "there is nothing decietful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all His creatures".  Pretty cool.

So God is good, always good, only good, and we are the recipients of that ourpouring of goodness. every good and perfect gift given to us by His grace.  When the baby came, (way before the days of knowing if it would be a boy or a girl in advance) I had a boy. His name is James and he goes by Jim. This is where the James came from. (It didn't hurt that is was also his granfather's middle name)

Now I love and appreciate the whole verse, not just being on the recieving end of that unlimited outpouring of good but understanding that God never changes, He never withholds good, He is always divine Love, loving me and everyone else, His very own child(ren).

Thanks, Dada, for the sweet reminder.