The dark side of gifts

Every gift has a sinister side. Any endowment from God, if we neglect ourselves, can become the foundation of a terrible fall or a great humiliation. In his severe mercy, God often humbles us and treats us proactively, so that our gifts do not become a source of failure for us.

An interesting illustration of this principle is provided by the life of the Apostle Paul. We have already seen in another context how Paul's famous thorn was part of that mechanism by which God uses negative circumstances in our lives to sanctify us and make us more like Christ. This same phenomenon can also be analyzed in the light of the subject we are dealing with. At times, the afflictions and failures of life can be used by God to balance and counterbalance the distortions that gifts create in the personality and character of the believer. The gifts and triumphs of ministry can lead to pride, self-reliance, or intolerance toward the weak. The goads that God allows in our lives can serve as an antidote and guide us toward humility, mercy, and continued dependence on God.

God gave Paul extraordinary spiritual experiences and revelations, so great that he was sometimes forbidden to share them in the human realm. That revelatory gift that allowed Paul to write two-thirds of the New Testament, and that made it possible for him to hear "ineffable words that it is not given to man to express (II Cor 12: 4)", given the personality of the apostle, it would easily have led to pride and think more of himself than was legitimate. To prevent this from happening, God sent him “a thorn,” a persistent spiritual affliction, which forced him to remain fragile and humble, and to constantly acknowledge his need for God's grace:

7 And so that the greatness of the revelations would not exalt me excessively, a thorn was given me in my flesh, a messenger of Satan who slaps me, so that I do not exalt too much.

In other words, in his severe mercy, God did not allow Paul's gift to exert its damaging effect and become a stumbling block to his life and ministry. Rather, it provided him with an artificial resource, a humiliating condition that would serve as a counterweight to his extraordinary spiritual endowment. Divine preventive intervention prevented the dark side of the gift that Paul had received from entering into manifestation, and allowed the anointed apostle to develop his ministry without that spiritual contamination that would have impoverished him.

In Paul's case, David's beautiful request in Psalm 139 was fulfilled:

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my thoughts;

24 And see if there is a wicked way in me, And guide me in the everlasting way.

God "examined" and "tested" Paul and, indeed, "saw" that there was in him a certain "way of wickedness"; in this case, a certain disposition towards pride. In his mercy, God imposed a spiritual discipline on the apostle that would keep him humble, and guide him in the “eternal way”, that is, in the perfect will of God, away from the possible accusations of Satan that could result from an attitude arrogant and presumptuous.

With fear and trembling, ask God to prune your gift, so that it can continue to grow healthily, bearing fruit for many years for his glory and your blessing.