I’m buying your Christmas gift today.

I have no idea what you want…

And even less idea what you actually need.

But I am buying your Christmas gift today.

The stores are ready for me.

They have the perfect gifts…

Prepackaged gifts…

Ready-to-buy gifts…

Gifts ready to play a starring role at your next white elephant party.

Gifts that say…

“I fulfilled my obligation to buy you a gift.”

Gifts that shout…

“You will forget me 20 minutes after you tear off my wrapping paper. “

But some gifts we remember…

Here’s one I remember from my wife…

Every year she buys the normal Christmas gifts…

Then…

She  buys identical gadget gifts for me and our son in law.

What is this gift?

A magic ball that’s supposed to levitate…

It doesn’t really levitate…

But the instruction book assures me…

“You too can create the illusion that it levitates…”

If I finish the included 20 hour DVD course in basic magic tricks!

I remember the gift not because of what it does…

But because it was given with love…

 It was a gift of love.

Here’s another gift…

A simple book my wife bought 30 years ago…

A book that is still my most used daily devotional.

I remember it because it too is a gift of love…

A gift of love from the person who knows me best, loves me most.

Neither of those gifts was expensive…

Neither was impressive…

But I remember them because each was a gift of love.

Don’t you agree…

It is the gift of love we remember most…

Because it is the gift of love that means the most…

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

Love itself becomes the gift…

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  John 15:13

A gift we must give away…

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  John 13:34

 Note: an original version of this post first appeared in November, 2015