Sometimes I like to use sarcasm when I write. Unfortunately I do not always know how it will be understood. SO in the interest of clarity (and to be festive for Christmas), I have chosen to put sarcastic lines in red, and the normal text in green. If the text is purple, I’m not really sure how to classify it, but I think it is intended to be slightly humorous, but also true…I think. Thank you for your understanding!
Christmas is in the air, the many colored lights, the beautifully decorated trees, the anticipation of possible Christmas snow. Many of my friends have finished their gift buying, and a few of my really overachieving friends have finished most of their gift buying for next year (you know who you are!) I have never really been a part of another families Christmas tradition, but the one constant that seems to be present in each tradition is the present. A gift, typically wrapped, sometimes humorous, sometimes deeply meaningful, occasionally practical seems to be a part of most family traditions.
I am not a great gift giver. I usually don’t even start shopping until Christmas Eve. I scramble to come up with something that will mean something to the person I give it to, or something that is at least practical and desirable. So if I am giving you a gift, there is a good chance you might just end up with a really nice flashlight. (Which isn’t bad if you ask me! Who doesn’t need an awesome flashlight? Seriously…I regularly carry 2 of them. You don’t?)
As bad as I am at giving gifts, I am even worse at wrapping them. I eventually gave up on trying to make the wrapping look good, and decided to focus on just disguising what was inside. After a few years of this, I found a much more practical way to wrap presents. In fact, my brothers still joke about the time I delivered their Christmas gifts wrapped in fast food bags. Yes, that really happened, and I am not ashamed!
Part of my struggle with giving gifts is found in a mistaken sense of obligation. When I give a gift, I try to give it freely, expecting nothing in return. When I receive a gift however, I tend to become burdened by the feeling that I can never repay the gift giver for the gift I have received. Even though I try to give freely and without expectation, I don’t seem to expect that same grace from others. The gift giving part of Christmas usually just leaves me with a feeling of being in debt to everyone around me, which is often how I feel most of the time anyways. In my mind, I have a double standard, my gifts are truly gifts, but gifts given to me are debts that must be repaid. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the whole process is that I am aware of my double standard, but seem powerless to change it.
I suspect that many of us have similar feelings if we were honest with ourselves. We want to give the best gifts we can, but something that is truly meaningful just seems so out of reach. We want to give freely, but our freedom is restricted by a sense of expected reciprocity in the process. We are so freaked out by the possibility of mismatched gift giving, that we set limits on what we will spend on each other. We deliberately sabotage the gift giving efforts of those who love us, by requesting that they give us a gift that fits into our financial specifications.
After all, nothing says “I love you” like sticking to the 25 dollar limit.
We have stolen the spirit of giving a gift by trying to limit it to something we can afford to return.
When we read in the Bible promises of God giving us things, I worry that we apply the same principles to his gifts as we do to our human interactions. We set limits on what can be given to us, because we have to be able to pay it back. I was a little stuck on this one for a while. How do you give the supreme divinity a flashlight as a gift when light wouldn’t exist without his divine intervention? “Here Jesus, I got you this flashlight…it’s pretty bright.” “Well…it’s not as bright as the sun (Have I said thank you for that by the way?) but it’s decent for a flashlight.” “I mean, if you have freshly charged batteries…!”
Eventually I figured out that Jesus was probably looking for our devotion and expression of faith in return for his gifts. “Here Jesus, I got you this 35 minute prayer that I prayed especially so you would know that I appreciate you for helping me with my struggles with lust and sin and everything.” Clearly my street cred went up significantly in Heaven the day I figured out how to use this little trick instead of offering Jesus flashlights. Now Jesus and I have this sweet little deal worked out where I pray for a few minutes and he blesses me with an appropriate amount of blessing to coincide with the amount of prayer I have done. It’s like nobody owes anyone anything!
Nothing says “I love you Jesus,” like putting limits on his gifts in our lives.
I suspect it has been a hectic few weeks leading up to Christmas, and frankly I think we could all use a little peace in our interactions with the people around us, the people we love, and the people who drive 10 miles an hour under the speed limit directly in front of us the WHOLE WAY to Fort Wayne! This time when we seek to open the gift of God’s peace in our lives, what if we choose to open the gift he wants to give us, instead of the one we have chosen to limit.
What if we decided that we could love Jesus best by allowing him to choose exactly what he wants us to have, and the quantity he wants us to have it in?
Can you imagine what that kind of peace could be like?
John 14:27 “ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. “
We are 20% of the way to our $2500 goal! A huge thank you to everyone who has given!