What can I give him?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3: 16

This Christmas I have heard many people bemoan the fact that they do not know what to get someone for a Christmas present. Worse still is not knowing what to say when someone asks what we would like!

Our loving God has everything because he created it all so what can we possibly give the God who has everything? For some this question might have been as the carol says, ‘What can I give him, poor as I am?’ For others we might say, ‘What can I give him, comfortable as I am?’ This question has been asked every Christmas as we focus on the wonderful gift that God gave us and that is where the answer lies. He gave us himself – God in a tiny baby. Emmanuel – God with us.  So what do we give the God who has everything – we do what he did and give ourselves; that is all God wants and it is the best gift. In our busy lives, God wants us.

However giving of ourselves is what people also desire – more than gifts and nice food – they want us; our love, friendship, time, support, encouragement. There are so many lonely, discouraged, disappointed, hopeless people and what they want is people who care, people who will stand with them, people to encourage them. We can’t do it for everyone but we can do it for someone.

Maybe you are already giving something other than presents today – perhaps serving a Christmas meal to people on their own, taking food to the homeless – have a wonderful Christmas. If you are with family and friends – have a blessed Christmas – but don’t pass up the opportunity to give of yourself today. Especially if there is something that needs to be put right, a phone call that needs to be made, an e mail that needs to be sent, an apology that needs to be made – please do it

This Christmas I expect most of us will give and receive many gifts and I am sure we will also focus on ‘the reason for the season’ but let us also look for an opportunity to give of ourselves to someone who may need an encouraging word, a hug, a smile, some appreciation.

Be blessed this Christmas

It's the thought that counts

It is more blessed to give than to receive.  Acts 20: 35

There is no doubt that when giving a gift, it is the thought that counts.  Some of the best gifts I have received have had small monetary value but huge value in terms of the thought behind the gift. One Mother’s Day I received four gifts from my children, none of which had great monetary value but each of which said a huge amount about the giver. Each child had taken a great deal of thought to give me something that would bless me and therefore each gift was very precious to me.  Amongst the gifts was a CD compilation of my favourite worship songs put together by my younger son. The thought behind it was amazing that he knew the songs I liked and as I listened to it for the first time, I never knew what the next track would be and so the gift became a blessing over and over again.

It is very hard to give something to someone who seems to have everything. The Royal Family apparently only gives small gifts to each other at Christmas. The Queen was reportedly delighted when someone gave her an apron. She loved it and whoever had given it had thought about it and knew it would give her pleasure.

God has everything and it all belongs to him. In themselves the Trinity are complete. They need no one or nothing more but yet they draw us into this complete relationship of love. Their love is so overwhelming they want all of their wonderful creation to enjoy it. So what can we bring to the One who has and is everything?

The answer of course is the only thing we have to give – our lives, our hearts and our love. So many people want to live independently of God not realising they are denying themselves the greatest gift that has been given to humanity – a relationship with God. What else could anyone want? Everything else pales into insignificance.  Yes man’s greatest treasure so often is his freedom and his independence, not realising that actually he is not living free but in bondage to sin, pain and suffering.  Only a life given freely to the one who gives life can lead to true freedom for mankind.

Jesus gave us all he could give; his life. The greatest gift we can give is our life given back to the one who loves us so much he died for us so we could enjoy fellowship and true freedom with him.

The desires of our heart

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
 Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37: 3 – 4

There is something in each one of us that is rather suspicious of our desires feeling they will be fleshly and that God would not give us those things as they would be bad for us. However I am not sure that is the case.  Imagine your child really, really wants a bicycle or a Wii or some such for their birthday or Christmas and it is within your capability to give them this. Most parents would do this, knowing that the huge pleasure their child would have at receiving their desire would also bring joy to their own heart.

As parents we do not want to spoil our children but we do want to bless them with the things they desire.  God, as the perfect dad, must also want to bless his children with the desires of their heart. He doesn’t want to spoil us but he knows better than we do how to give us good gifts without making us selfish.

When I was still a young Christian, I felt God say to me one day, ‘What would you most like?’  Now I could have, like Solomon, asked for wisdom but almost immediately I said, ‘I want to travel Lord’.  God has taken that desire and over the last 28 years we have been to so many places both on mission trips and on holiday. Indeed for 11 years in a row I went on a short term mission trip as well as having some enviable holidays.

We do not have lots of money but God has blessed us again and again with travel opportunities and paid for them!  He has given us the desires of our heart as we delighted ourselves in him. I am asking God now to open up fresh travel opportunities and mission trips as I feel there are many more places I would like to go to. 

On another occasion, my father took the family to a show in London. It was amazing and on the way home I thanked God for the opportunity to do something we could never have afforded then. His reply surprised me. ‘You wanted to go, didn’t you?’ I remembered that I had said to God almost in passing that I would love to see a show in London and he had remembered and answered my desire.  There was nothing spiritual about it – it was just a desire I had.

I know now that I can trust God to bring about my desires in his own way and time and if they really are ‘bad’ for me, he will withhold them like any good Father would. We do not have to be afraid of our desires and ‘crucify our flesh’ so we have no desires. As with so many aspects of the Christian faith, it is a balancing act between ‘your will not mine’ and God giving us the desires of our heart.

The key is to seek the Giver not the gift. It is delighting ourselves in him, loving him for who he is not what he can give us. No Father wants a child to be looking at his hands to see what is in them but rather to be looking at his face and then finding his hands are full of blessings.