In the month of December, we have my daughter’s birthday to celebrate, and we have Christmas to celebrate a week later. So this month will have a lot of gift giving. We have been buying and preparing our gifts and asking what my daughter and our family might like for a few months now. We have been shopping online, and my daughter and I even made a Thanksgiving trip to see my parents in Myrtle Beach and to brave the Black Friday shopping at the Tanger Outlet shops there. So “gifts” and “giving” are present in our thoughts and in our day’s activities more than usual.
With a daughter who was due on Christmas day, and who was ushered into this world with “All I want for Christmas is You” playing in the delivery room, Christmas always has me contemplating gifts like my daughter, my wife, family, friends, our health, our talents and abilities, the gospel and our God as much more valuable than any gift that will be wrapped under a tree, left by Santa, or delivered to us by those we love and that love us. The most precious gifts can’t be bought with money (no matter how far and wide Amazon Shopping expands their inventory lists, LOL).
If we can’t buy these “most precious gifts”, then where do they come from?
We’ve each received the gift of life, the breath in our lungs, the waking up each morning, the opportunities that each new day brings, the relationships with others, and an opportunity for relationship with the one who gives us these good and perfect gifts. We’ve each received an offer to turn away from a focus on the things of this world that can be bought or sold but that will fade away — to come back home to Him, to be a part of His family, to join in the truly good and truly great things. He doesn’t demand or force us to join Him, nor does He have to scare us away from the dangers we might be walking towards on our own — if we will just listen to His invitation, trust Him, and receive what is given to us freely.
What gift is better than a life where we harm ourselves less?
What gift is better than everybody understanding and peace when the hard times and loss that is part of this life come beating down on us?
What gift is better than no longer being a slave to addiction, or to our own desires, or to our passions, or toour feelings, or to our own opinions — but to know things like wisdom, self- control, patience, kindness and gentleness?
What gift is better than learning how to truly live and to truly love?
These most precious gifts come from above. Thank you Jesus!
James 1:17 AMP
[17] Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], in whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].
Harold J. Ballinger 