receive
Riley walks in carrying a package, her arms wrapped wide around a big plastic mailer, and I suddenly remember to receive God’s gifts and give thanks.
“There is a package for Mom,” she says, her chin bobbing against the load,” and I’m guessing it has something to do with Christmas.”
She’s right, of course. To get ahead of the kind of stress that threatens to ruin my appreciation of the season, I have already started my Christmas shopping. I have, in fact, already started my Christmas wrapping too, smiling over glittery bows and snow-covered trees while I gaze at the blood-red leaves on the tree outside my window.
Of course, God’s gifts, which He also plans and prepares in advance for us, include every material blessing, things like food and shelter and water and cars and books, as well as every spiritual blessing—peace, love, unity, patience, joy, and so many others. Counting His gifts of every kind, really taking hold of them, noticing and enjoying them, yanks futility out by the roots before it tangles into things. Something about the way Riley looks carrying that package, the way it fills her arms to capacity, the way she struggles to get it through the door, reminds me again that God’s gifts weigh more than the hardship I know, that they take up more space then all the loss I’ve experienced. I pick up my pen to see with my mind what I now see in my heart, and I begin to list,
Christmas gifts
Riley’s smile
slow, unhurried stillness
newness of morning
your love and joy, how they fill me up
“I think you’re right,” I say to Riley, putting down my pen to take the package from her arms. I smile wide, enjoying the magical fizz of giving, the anticipation and mystery and grace of actively receiving wrapped-up love. These too are God’s gifts, wrapped up in our own giving and receiving.
When New Testament scripture speaks of receiving what God gives, the writers almost always use a Greek word that emphasizes the assertiveness of the one receiving, the aggressive taking of what’s offered. We’re meant to become good givers and good receivers.
We have appropriated “It’s more blessed to give than to receive,” and mostly have forgotten that the words we quote as a proverb come from the book of Acts, where Luke records Paul directly quoting Christ. We understand the call to generosity but sometimes miss Paul’s point in context, that the person who gives generously out of what he or she has received from God has the most enviable position. I don’t have to beg, borrow, and steal, hoard, or carefully parse my resources because God’s gifts are not only more than sufficient for me, they’re also more than satisfying. Christ conveyed a similar sentiment in a passage we call the beatitudes. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted, for example, means not that it’s better to mourn but that it’s enviable to be comforted by God himself. There’s no other comfort like that. Regardless of what humans do, God always gives the best gifts.
In the honorable pursuit of generosity, we have sometimes dismissed the blessing, even the command, to receive, not that in action receiving must always precede giving, but that our faith in God as giver motivates our generosity in every circumstance. In the Old Testament, the Israelites provoked God’s anger when they failed to take hold of, to actively receive, the land He had already given to them, and in the New Testament, writers urge Christ’s apprentices to seize–indeed, Paul even intensifies this term–the life that is truly life, that is, eternal life (intimate, experiential knowledge of God forever) and every spiritual blessing already purchased for us through the cross of Christ. In practical terms, we know that giving falls flat unless receiving completes the arc. Giving and receiving work together in a kind of relational embrace, each one repetitively giving rise to and wrapping around the other.
“But who has gifts in this one?” Riley asks, searching with some vulnerability for a way to discover whether this package holds something for her. In her heart, she’s like a child, lifting empty palms, extending open arms to receive the gifts she anticipates and believes already to be good for her. In her eyes, I can already see the dazzle of delight.
“Well, let me take a peek, because I won’t know until I do,” I say, grinning, watching Riley’s face grow bright.
I have finished my shopping for Adam, so the pile of gifts for him now patiently awaiting Kevin’s comical tags sits neatly stacked and plump compared to the one gift I’ve wrapped for Zoe and the none yet bearing Riley’s name, but even so, I know that for Riley the question comes from the faithful anticipation of her own blessings, not comparison or jealousy. As she makes her rounds upstairs, I often hear her giggle over the gifts she sees, enthused not only to be blessed herself but because others are also blessed. she is childlike without being childish.
“I love it when you and dad give us gifts,” she says now, giggling as I dig a finger into the plastic and tear open the mailer, peering over the top so she can’t see inside.
“You do? Why?”
“Because it’s fun to watch everyone open their presents,” she says, the words a tumbling rush through her laughter.
God’s ways are not our ways, and yet, I can’t help but believe He enjoys watching us actively receive His good gifts. As imperfect a parent as I am, it makes me tremendously happy to see my children enjoy what we give them. In fact, the way they receive what I’ve given them changes everything about how I receive and interpret their thanksgiving.
“Hmmm,” I say, drawing out the moment, soaking up Riley’s sparkle. “Looks like there are a few things in here for you.”
Joy bubbles over so hard she bends at the waist into a belly laugh that shakes her shoulders and steals her breath. I’m witnessing full body receiving, in advance of the gift. Oh to be so captured by grace, I think, waiting because I sense Riley has more to say to me. Finally, she sighs and straightens, wide-grinning at the bag still sitting in my lap, a few left over chuckles tumbling out as she exhales.
“So Mom…I need to start thinking about what I want to give Josh.”
