My package of gifts

I was listening to the last part of C S Lewis's Mere Christianity, read by Jeffrey Howard. What got to me is: God will judge us in the end, by subtracting the gifts, talents, nice personalities that are actually given by Him to us in the first place.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17). God not only created me from nothingness, he also formed me (Isaiah 43:1). If I got a nice personality, that's gift from Him. God designs my body shape, decides the initial states of my IQ, EQ and the output power of my left, right brain. He designates the family I was born into, the events and people I encounter at different stages of my life. Here's the truth: I didn't earn any of these things. They're GIFTS.

What does that leave me? Nothing to boast except possibly that I’ve finally come to my senses not to continuously mistake that I am giving God some of the "good me."

Things then start to make sense. No wonder I shouldn't get impatient with people who either received a different package or received less (if there's such a thing) than I did. In the parable of talents (Matthew 25:14-30) the three servants are given 5k, 2k, and 1k respectively. Those talents don't only mean spiritual gifts"; the talents include all the good things I am given.

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Luke 12:48). In the past, I was sometimes asked to do more than other people even under the same posts. Maybe that's why.