Christian Devotional-Stories and Bible verses about the presence of God in our lives

Gift of God

Christmas is over…

But the memory of the gifts I wrapped lives on…

Ugly…

gift of god

“Ugly” is the only word to describe the gifts I wrap…

As you read this post, are you thinking …

“Wrapping gifts?  What could be easier?  What could be more fun?”

If you are thinking those thoughts…

Let’s just say you and I have very different skills.

If God really wants to punish me, he will condemn me to an eternity of wrapping packages in a busy mall on Christmas Eve…

Just like in the movie “Groundhog Day”, I will wake up every morning to face the same day again…

I’ll meet the same long line of angry, hurried people who can’t believe I take so long to do such a bad job of wrapping their gift …

There is one advantage to my lack of wrapping skill…

On Christmas morning, my family never has to read the tag to figure out which packages are from me…

They can tell just by looking at the wrapping…

Is the bow falling off?

Is a little bit of the box peeking through at the corner where I ripped the paper?

“Look!” they’ll say, “That one’s from Bob!”

I wanted this year to be different…

I actually started Christmas shopping before December 24th, thinking that if I had more time to wrap the gifts, they’d might look better.

Time, it turns out, is no substitute for talent when it comes to wrapping gifts.

So here I sit…

Knowing that my gifts looked really ugly under the tree…

Thanking God…

Who put me in a family that doesn’t measure my love by the beauty of my Christmas wrapping…

Thanking God…

Who when He looks at the gifts I bring Him, looks past the external messiness of my life…

The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

 And with love and mercy and grace…

Gives me the most beautiful gift of all…

 …the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.   Romans 6:23

Note:  An original version of this post first appeared in December, 2015

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