The Best Gift

It is early in the morning, and I’m curled up on the couch trying to wrap my mind around the words I want to say, the truth I want to write. I love making things. I love packaging up boxes of gifts to send off to friends and family (so many are far away now.) And with this blog, I want to encourage you in your own exploration and adventure of making and giving.

But in the process of writing down ideas for the blog and brainstorming resources to put in the shop, if I forget the best gift . . . then what is the point?

What is a pdf compared to a life?

I don’t want to enthusiastically share about a cute gift idea and fail to even mention the best gift that has changed my heart and truly changed the entire trajectory of my life.

I’ll be honest here. I love to make and give things, but in reality I am like a beggar desperately needing help. All of my past good deeds and successes and all of the little gifts I’ve made throughout my life mean nothing to a holy and perfect God. I offer him my gifts but as I reach up to give them to him, something happens. They look tattered and muddied.

Yet, here is the amazing part. The part that honestly takes my breath away. He knows that. He knows that all of my trying to be good could never be enough to reach him. And so he reached down to me, to us, and sent his Son, Jesus, as the ultimate gift. And Jesus lived a perfect life, the life I have no ability to live, and died in my place.

“God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

All I have to do is own up to the fact that I need him. That I desperately need this gift. That this isn’t something to add to my wish list or something to write down as a goal to reach. . . this is the kind of gift that stops me in my tracks. That I give up everything for. There is no proving myself. He died for me to free me from thinking I have to earn his love.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans  10:9)

Saved.

I believed this truth as a little girl and yet, even as I am typing it, the tears are welling up in my throat. I’m still astounded that he really did do everything. That all I had to do was open my hands and receive. But isn’t that what a true gift is?

I’m writing this and can’t help but think I’m saying it all wrong. There are so many who are more eloquent that I am (so I’ll add a couple of links at the end of this post for further reading!) But even though my words stutter across the screen, I have to say something. I can’t just write about my little gifts when I’ve been given the ultimate gift. Jesus truly changed my life. He has given me hope and peace and life. My gifts are nothing compared to that freedom.

For more truth concerning God’s ultimate gift for us, consider visiting Beth Moore’s Living Proof website or Anne Graham Lotz’ site. They are both full of beauty and truth that will fill your soul.