What I Gleaned From My Season of Gifts

This is the final installment of what I'm calling The Gift Series of posts. You can find the first three here.

I noticed several things about this new season of my life.

1. I was holding on to the truths that God loves me personally and intimately. I chose to believe the truth of the Bible. That in itself was a gift, given how easy it is to believe the naturally ingrained messages of our unloveableness. I think it's because, well, we actually are guilty. We actually do fall short. (Ha! That's an understatement!) But, because of Christ's dying on the cross to take on our sins (mine and yours), our belief in that wipes our slate clean. Though we continue to fail and be guilty, God looks at us through Christ's sinless innocence...and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1 again.) As Christians, we can choose to live according to the lies that because of our yuck God doesn't look on us favorably - or - we can choose to believe that because of Christ and despite our yuck God does look on us favorably. Beyond favorable to delight, actually. That's hard to accept. I know me. I'm not all that delightful. But that's what the Bible says. That's what we are called to believe. "I choose to believe that I am who You say I am," to quote a song written by my friend Angie W.

2. God has good gifts for me every single day, and my eyes can either be dulled and blind to them or expectant and open to them. Rather obvious, yes, but don't we all need reminding of this? I needed to develop the practice of seeing His gifts to me.

3. The thing that was new and made it effective was that I believed it for me. Not just for the collective us, the theoretical us, but for me. Today. This day. Right now. Because of that one lonely birthday, I shook off the lies, stood up and grabbed hold of this truth. I acknowledged and clung to the fact that God loves to give, "even" to me.

4. Another huge thing was standing up to lay hold of the truth that God knows and loves me intimately and specifically. Individually and separately from the collective family that includes all my brothers and sisters in Christ. Do you ever have a hard time buying a gift for someone? Sometimes it’s hard to think of something that particular person would really like, something that would really make them smile, give them pleasure, and be meaningful to them. God knows us so intricately and specifically, He knows what will be a gift to you, and when. What is a gift to me may not be a gift to you. What makes your heart smile and soar with delight may not do anything for your spouse or friend. God knows you. Not only does God know your heart and soul, He knows your days and hours...He knows WHEN to give specifically WHAT He gives to specifically you.

This asking God for gifts began a very special season in my life. Whether or not I am in a season of daily and intentionally asking Him for gifts, the effect of that time in my life remains: my eyes are more open to seeing His gifts even when I don’t ask for them. When I recognize one of God’s gifts to me, I am drawn into sweet fellowship with Him. I am reminded of His specific love for specifically me. I love Him more. "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19, KJV). When I recognize His special gifts of love to me, my love for Him grows.

So...I've shared my season of gifts with you to encourage you to desire to better see His love gifts each day. Perhaps you'll even want to begin asking Him for a special gift as I did, for eyes to see it, and a heart to draw near to Him in intimate thanksgiving.

These posts have been in my drafts for weeks and I've just now gotten them edited down (believe it or not!) and reworked into several posts. Typing that last word "thanksgiving" I suddenly noticed how fitting it is that that they were not ready until right now as we are approaching the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Guess God knew what good timing it would be if this piece languished for awhile in my draft files.

Gifts and thanks-giving. Good stuff.

Then Came A Dry Season

If you've read my first two posts (One Lonely Birthday and Gifts) about my season of gifts, you might suspect the next phase on the horizon for me. A dry season. A falling away.

There came a time when I began to get lazy in my morning habit of stepping into the presence of God’s love and asking Him for a special gift. I was struggling with some doctrinal issues that made me question His love and I had not drawn near to Him for many weeks. As I began to emerge out of the problem and lessen the distance between myself and God, I noticed that I hadn’t been asking Him for gifts. It was because I felt I had disappointed Him with my wrestlings and my distance. I wanted to ask but I felt unworthy. After dodging the issue for awhile, I tried to ask Him for a gift one night on my way home from work, but the words simply would not form. So entangled in doubt, disappointment and guilt, I took the mental breath to begin, and then just couldn't. The unformed words died away and I gave up.

The very next morning as I was out with the dogs. I heard an animal noise I hadn't yet learned to recognize. Was it a bird, a squirrel, an elk? As you know by now, one of my big thrills and desires is to see wildlife actually on our property. Though I was in the middle of my morning routine before work, I simply had to investigate. I put the dogs back in the house and began walking toward the sounds. On my way, I saw two coyotes running along our property edge. This wasn't even the sound I'd been hearing but it was so cool seeing them quietly running. Eventually I saw the makers of the noise; two female elk pleasantly walking in the meadow across the gravel road from our place. I saw them gracefully jump the neighbor's fence and into his pasture. Up till then this was the closest glimpse I'd had of elk near our land. I was thrilled. A little while later on my 25 mile drive to work I saw two deer, a buck and a doe. We NEVER see deer. Then I saw two bald eagles sitting in “the eagle trees” closer to town. I call them the eagle trees because in the winter a bald eagle is sometimes sitting in these ghostly dead pine trees. I always checked them, but eagles were not always in them. That day there were two. Wow! Gifts galore.

Technically, I hadn't even actually asked for another gift. But God knew my heart missed our special gift encounters. He knew my heart wanted to ask. He considered my feeble and failed attempt to be a prayer. He answered the prayer of my heart, if not the prayer of my lips. With not just one wildlife sighting but four. And everything in pairs. Though I couldn't even form the words to ask, God answered. Double time and quadrupled. It was as if He went over the top and then doubled it to tenderly shout at me, “YES! Yes, I want to give you gifts every day! Even when you're distant and hesitant to be near Me! I WANT to give to you! I want you to come near!”

Wow. What a gift inside a gift it all was.

Tomorrow I'll wrap up this gift series (oh, what clever puns she writes) with some of the things I gleaned from it. See you then....

Gifts

So, I found myself alone one birthday and feeling kind of blue about it. I dared to ask God to give me a birthday gift. The next morning, bright and early, my brother called to wish me a happy birthday. While it’s not an entirely unusual thing for our family members to call someone on their birthday, it's not entirely usual either. The thought that I might get calls on my birthday never crossed my mind. I was not expecting it at all and I was thrilled to hear from my big brother at 7:00 a.m. on my birthday! God answered my prayer and had given me a special gift. He then multiplied it throughout the day and evening as I got more calls from my family members.

Amazingly, rather than chastise myself and shame myself for having become dull to the signs of His love which I really believed He was already giving, rather than putting a guilt burden on myself and demanding that I "Pay more attention, you ungrateful slob!", I instead dared to ask for another gift the next day. And the next, and the next. And thus began a season where my relationship with God took on a new intimacy. I dared to believe He loved me enough to want to give me gifts each day. I began each day asking, Will You give me a gift today? or, What gift do You have for me today? Because of this, my eyes changed. I didn’t look for gifts per se, as in “What can I consider to be a gift about today?” I wasn’t on the hunt for something to attach God’s name to, but I was expectant when I asked. I just went about my day, often forgetting to expect a gift altogether. But when it came, I knew it. I began to keep a little notebook in my purse that I wrote His gifts down in.

Most often, His gifts to me were in the form of nature. (He knows me.) A cloud that looked just like a crashing wave. A bald eagle in a tree near our property - that I would never have seen had I not for some peculiar reason turned completely around and looked behind me as I left our road. One day my gift came in the form of a needy woman on the other end of the church phone that I got to pray with and help. Another gift a couple weeks later was finding out she now had a place to live that was right next door to a Bible believing church she‘d already begun attending.

It was a sweet and special time for me. God was giving me gifts every day and I was basking in the joy of this new season.

Continued tomorrow.....

One Lonely Birthday

My family used to get together to celebrate birthdays for every member, whether child or adult. In recent years this has kind of fallen off but several years ago my husband and I would travel the four hours by car to join as many of these parties as possible during the year. A few times everyone came up to our place in the mountains for my birthday. But one year, neither was able to occur. On top of it all, my husband had to be out of town. I was going to be alone on my birthday.

The night before this lonely birthday, I unknowingly embarked on a journey that would continue to bless me over and over again in a myriad of ways. I spent most of my 30+ years as a Christian believing that God didn’t think much of me. Oh, He loved me, I used to think – but only because I was thrown in there with the rest of "the world" that "He so loved." I knew He loved me for salvation. He had to, right? But after that, I somehow continued the notion that I was never measuring up to His standard of lovable and acceptable. According to the Bible, my theology was WAY off! Because of Christ's work on the cross and my belief in it, “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) I began to be healed from this false thinking by filling my mind with the truth that God truly loves specifically me just as I am. As I began to dare to believe in His love, I began, albeit barely, to rest in it and enjoy it. The night before my oh-so-sad birthday, I dared to ask something of God. I said, "God, would You please give me a birthday gift tomorrow? Just some special little thing specifically from You, specifically for me? Would You do that for me?"


It was a request that had been on my mind for some time apart from my birthday. As it seemed to me, God has countless "gifts" He wants to give us each day. I know much better now that He loves each of us so much that He delights in giving special little gifts sent especially to each of us. I imagine that He probably didn’t wait for my asking before He began sending me gifts. I was just too busy racing through my day at high speed to notice them when they came. God does indeed give us countless gifts each day that we mostly take for granted. Another day of sight. Another day of hearing. Another day with loved ones. We have our jobs, our families, our homes. Friends, health, and on and on. Part of me wanted to learn to see what He was already giving and part of me wanted to receive special, out-of-the-ordinary things. Jennifer Kennedy Dean says in her book, A Praying Life, "You desire to ask because God desires to give." Looking back, I think God was tugging at my heart because He was wanting to give to me. He was wanting me to more fully see and believe His love for me. It was my birthday that emboldened me to ask for a "gift."

Check in tomorrow to see what happened...