Excessive Gifts
Posted by admin on Oct 14, 2011 in Blog | 0 commentsTwice in the past 6 months I’ve been the recipient of what I would consider “excessive gifts.” The first was a brand new iPad 2 as a “thank you” for letting someone stay at our house for a couple weeks. The other was an “excessive gift” from a completely anonymous source. The details really aren’t important, but I’ve learned a lot from my knee-jerk reaction to receiving these gifts.
Here’s a list of the thoughts and feelings I experienced when I received these “excessive gifts”:
- (with the ipad) “That was way too much. Great. Now we need to buy them a car or something next time we stay at their house for a week.”
- Guilt: this is way beyond what seems “appropriate” for service we performed (to be honest, we would have gladly paid to have them stay at our house).
- I must find a way to pay it back.
- Is it even okay to just accept the gift?
- Frustration: “What are they thinking? We don’t need or deserve this.”
- (with the anonymous gift) My mind raced to figure out who gave it to us so I could know what they were thinking and how to make it right.
- “Since I can’t pay it back, I need to make sure to act in a way worthy of this gift.”
What this tells me: I still naturally operate in a performance-based narrative. I’m crawling in my skin when I receive something I haven’t earned and cannot pay back. How many of my spiritual decisions are based out of this performance-based narrative? Probably a lot more than I’m aware of, since it’s clearly my gut reaction.
The parallel:
- God gave me an absurdly excessive gift that I did not, in any possible way, deserve. I have no hope of paying it back. I’m a fool when I try to offer my spiritual acts to God as a way of paying Christ back for His blood. Is reading my Bible more, praying extra hard, giving of my time, money, service going to add up to enough to buy back the death of an innocent Man?
- The point isn’t to try to pay it back. God wanted to bless me with something He knew I couldn’t pay myself, so He found a way to pay it for me. God knows I don’t deserve it, but He chose to give me freedom from the Debt anyway.
- The sooner I simply ACCEPT His gift, the sooner I am free. Otherwise, I’m receiving freedom from sin just to burden myself with a new yolk of religion (slavery to trying to earn my salvation).
What I’ve decided I should do:
- Accept the gift with humility and gratitude, without pride or guilt.
- Enjoy the gift… someone gladly gave up much to bless me. It’s time to be blessed. If someone thinks I should enjoy an iPad 2, they don’t want me to waste my time figuring out a way to even the score, but to get to work enjoying the wonder of Angry Birds HD. Christ thought it was worth enduring death on the cross separation from God so that I no longer have to be separated from God. It’s time to revel in intimacy with Him: not to satiate guilt, but because it’s simply enjoyable.
How this changes me:
- I want to share the gift out of joy. Last night, my mother-in-law sat on the couch laughing and smiling while playing Angry Birds (my 4 year old gave her a tutorial earlier in the day). The iPad has been so much fun for me, I want others to share in the wonder of the 9.7″ multi-touch LED-display, dual-core A5 processor, and 2 HD cameras. In the same way, when I simply delight in the gift of love God shares with me, enjoying being His beloved child, everything in me wants others to enjoy the same blessing. I don’t feel obligated to spend time with God; I want to know this loving, generous Father. I don’t need to obey Him; I want to please this Father who delights in me.
God, thank you for the ultimate excessive gift, for doing for me what I could not do for myself, simply because You love me. Help me to live a life free from performance and religion; forgive me for trying to earn Yours and others’ approval and love. Teach me to humbly accept your gift so that I can live in relationship with you. Make me new from the inside out. Teach me to stop living as your slave, but to live as Your beloved child.
