How I got free tickets to Bruce Springsteen

February 24, 2017 by Sam Wadham 3 Comments

Ok, I misled you a little with my title.

I haven’t found a secret way of making God, the Universe, or the humans within it give me free tickets to Bruce Springsteen at my whim. I did not do anything specific to make this happen. These tickets were, like many of the other good things in our lives, something I did not ask for, but received anyway. But do I think they were an awesome present from my Heavenly Father? Yes. And why?

Consider this verse:

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

James 1:17.

Think of something that is good and perfect in your life, that brings you joy instead of sorrow, and good instead of evil. What do you have or enjoy that you really love? I can tell you without doubt that it came from your Heavenly Dad. That’s what this verse guarantees us.

Because we live with other humans on this planet, it’s easy to find ‘rational’  explanations for good things in our lives. In this case, my good friend Mike very generously bought me a ticket and flights to go with him to a great concert.

Here we are:

In a worldview without a invariably good Heavenly Dad, Mike and his generosity is the reason I get to go to the concert. And of course, this is true. Mike is very generous, and I can be really grateful for his gift. But this worldview is incomplete. It’s also true that my concert ticket (to ‘The Boss’ no less) was a gift from the Father. What does this mean for you? Well, what if our Father really is the one behind all the good things that occur in our lives?

What if gifts from our Father are not limited to wonderful truths from the Bible, spiritual gifts, miracles of healing, and everything else we neatly categorise as ‘spiritual’? What if these gifts also include your favourite TV show, your favourite romance novel (for the men!), that knitting class you’re taking – heck, everything in your life that brings you delight and joy.

James 1:17 is our internal compass, pointing us towards God’s goodness in our lives. It reminds us God gives us good gifts – whatever they look like and however they come. This also means He is not author of any of the bad stuff in our lives, by the way – although He will use the bad stuff for good!

If you limit God’s generosity in your life to the good things you might receive during a church service on Sunday, then who do you thank for everything else that’s good in every other part of your life? When we take a ‘God-is-only-the-giver-of-awesome-spiritual-things-in-my-life’ point of view, we don’t get to be excited about anything else that really blesses and rejuvenates our hearts. Even more, we’ll put all those other ‘non-spiritual’ things down to luck, fate, or circumstance. Our view of God’s goodness becomes severely restricted and I believe our relationship with him suffers as a consequence. Why would our relationship suffer? Because we don’t think He’s as good as He really is!

I want to keep challenging us to have an expanded view of the goodness of God. To finish off, I’d love to hear of some of the ‘less spiritual’ things you’re thankful for in your life – maybe even some that haven’t shown up yet!