This past Sunday was, of course, Mother’s Day. My two sons and I put together a little grab bag of gifts for my wife and I discovered the answer to an age old question… which is really the more important? the gift or the giver? The answer? It is totally the giver!
I know this because of a neon green t-shirt. Among the home made cards, coupons for good behavior, a candle, and other things… there was a neon green t-shirt. Now, for some back story – my wife is a beautiful woman and looks wonderful in anything she wears, but she has definite ideas about what she likes and what colors/styles she will wear. And while she does like the occasional t-shirt… well, let’s just say there is not a single neon green item in her closet. So, as she pulled this shirt out of the grab bag… she looked at me. No, I mean she LOOKED at me… husbands – you know the look. It was that “what were you thinking?” look. It was that “we have been married how many years and this is what you get me?” look. She didn’t say anything in front of the kids, she just looked. I must admit that I was a little befuddled by the look because I didn’t give her the shirt.
She went on through the bag and after she had finished it, our youngest son proclaimed loudly how many of the gifts were ones he had made or purchased (with his AWANA bucks at the AWANA store). When it became clear that he was the giver of the neon green t-shirt and not me, my wife’s entire demeanor changed. Suddenly the shirt was wonderful, the color was perfect, and the probability that she would wear the shirt went from “a snowball’s chance in Texas” to “this summer, for sure!” The gift, itself, was almost irrelevant - the whole story was about the giver.
We are offered so many things in our lives. People will offer us ‘love’, governments will offer us ’security’, items will offer us ‘wholeness’… and we often look only at the gift being offered. I know I do. I focus on the thing and not the one offering it. And usually, the item offered doesn’t live up to the hype. The gift falls short. I wonder if I were more focused on the givers, would I accept those gifts so readily? Or if the giver was the important thing, would those gifts increase in their value and meaning?
I have been offered the gift of ‘a better life’ on several occasions… from people who wanted me to vacate myself to get it, from governmental systems on both sides of the aisle, from an industry that chews artists up, and finally from a God who sacrificed Himself instead of me. If I am focused on the gift only, then I might accept any of these several versions of ‘a better life’ without realizing that they do not all mean the same thing. In fact, it is the giver in each instance that defines what the gift really means. And in the end, it is the giver that is important, the gift becoming a side issue (even if it is a neon green t-shirt).
And the irony of the Christian faith, is that in Christ, the Giver is the Gift.
