A gift. It’s wrapped and then given. The receiver takes and does what she pleases with it.
I met with two close friends recently. We contemplated the act of worship. Is it only singing, reading the Bible and praying? We wondered if part of our daily lives might somehow be an offering to God. That one particular thing we do that is so intertwined with our maker. The thing that makes our hearts come alive, burning, singing on their very own grateful melodies to the one who knitted it together.
Our gifts, perhaps.
The act of our Father bending close and handing something special to us, and as our palms reach to receive the gift, we know we must keep returning to him as the source. It’s not a take, open and use. It’s that one talent you know you never earned on your own.
My friend who has an eye for creativity. She creates, makes and delights through her cakes that are works of art. Anyone can learn to decorate, but her details go beyond aesthetics, delighting, surprising and reaching people in a way a normal creation never could. The small corgi with the intricate dog donut – the details that only come from understanding how to love others. A gift.
Is it possible to take the gift and walk away with it? Sure… but that’s a dangerous path to trek. Showing your shiny box to onlookers, telling them it’s what you can do. What you have. What you made. All the while the giver is watching, eyes disappointed, hands ready to continue molding that perfect gift into something better, more, day by day. But instead you’ve hidden it from his grasp, like a child curling under a blanket thinking she’s unseen to the parent, while the shape of her body fully known to the room.
Singers, artists, actors. We’ve seen so many unwrap the gift and sprint away to lavish it all on their own. The audience hears and sees the beauty of it, suspicious eyes certain that it couldn’t possibly have naturally flowed from that person’s mouth, fingers, or mind…yet, we shrug away the knowing and admire the gifts as if they never came from above.
But the one who returns to the giver each time she longs to tap into her gift, realizing it’s a gifting, not a single box to be torn into. A powerful act of workshop that unlocks a spiritual connection between maker and creation.
Finding what stirs up joy and adds to our unique character. What a trick from the enemy to think the whole time that it requires soul searching, learning self-love or finding our inner strength. What if it was never about ourselves at all?
What if we took the step to worry less about finding ourselves and more about finding our God. In that, you just might be surprised at the special gift that has your name carefully written on the tag, ready to be received.
