Thoughts On A Given Day

The major holiday season has just passed. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. It’s always  enjoyable, and it’s always hard. Enjoyable, because it’s a time for gathering with family and friends. It’s always hard because it takes a lot of work to get things together for big holiday occasions. In my family, we always try to gather at my parent’s home for Thanksgiving. It is always a gathering of extended family. A lot of food. A lot of people. A lot of fun and laughter. But this takes a lot of work as well. Someone has to prepare that food. Someone has to plan. Someone has to clean up. Someone always has to drive, sometimes great distances, to get there. But it’s worth it. It’s worth the drive. It’s worth the planning. It’s worth the work. The same can be said of the Christmas, which usually happens at my house. As many of my children as are free gather in my house for Christmas. It’s wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Lots of gifts, and again, lots of food, fun, and love. But at my house Christmas extends to New Year’s day. That’s when my best friend, and as many of my children who can gather for our final celebration of Christmas for the year. We always observe the new year as well. And again, there’s lots of food and lots of fun. Seems like a recurring theme doesn’t it.

I was recently reminded of a Christmas  long ago when my friend gave my youngest son a great toy for Christmas that didn’t work quite perfectly. Although my son would have been content to keep that toy my friend insisted that we return to the store and exchange it. So the next day we loaded up and headed to the toy store. My friend told my son that he could pick out any toy he wanted in the store. On the face of it, this sounds great, but the reality was less great than one might think. My son was torn, having far too many choices, far too many wonderful things within his grasp simply for the asking. We walked around the store for a minimum of two hours while he looked at and examined every toy in the place. Finally he chose a huge toy airplane. It was wonderful to look at. It was a World War II Navy fighter plane, and he couldn’t resist it. He brought that Big Blue plane home and attempted to play with it. The problem was, it didn’t really go with anything else he had. It was far bigger than any of his other toys, so  when he played with the plane, he played only with the plane. He kept this up for a while until after a few months he lost interest and began to play with it less and less. The plane began to sit upon his top bunk more and more as he played with other things. Eventually, when it began to be no longer played with at all, the plane was moved to the attic where it began to collect dust. It was a wonderful gift, freely given, with love and good intentions. It was received joyfully, gratefully, and the love was returned. But eventually the gift lost the luster of that initial glow, and it was  set aside.

Long ago, we were given a wonderful gift as well. Jesus Christ died on a cross to give mankind the opportunity for salvation, and the opportunity to have the Holy Spirit with us and working in us and through us. What greater gift could we ask for? I have to wonder though, what have we done with the gift? Do we use it daily? Is it making a difference in our lives? Or is it simply a wonderful gift that we received once and now sits in our attic collecting dust.

John 3:16

World English Bible

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