God's Gift To Us

 Sometimes, when you think about life, you might say to yourself, ‘Here we go again’, ‘life’s been hitting me hard’, or ‘It is what it is’. You might say, ‘If only I had money’, ‘If only I were skinny’, or ‘If only I found love’. Some of us say these things to ourselves almost daily, and most of us say them multiple times an hour.

I disagree with this thinking.

Life is meant to be lived, breathed, experienced, enjoyed, purposeful, meaningful, lovely, wondrous, delicate, adventurous, exhilarating, and many more things. Life is a gift from God, and should be treated as such. What do you do if you receive a gift from someone? Do you toss it onto the nearest surface, fully intending to get back to it when you have the chance? Do you open it, then, realizing it’s not what you wanted, shove it aside and hope the giver doesn’t ask what you did with it? Or do you regift it to someone else?

Wow. Saying it like that really puts it into perspective how much we care for things that are gifted to us. Of course, there is the possibility that you do cherish the gift you were given, you take care of it, maintain it, and use it to its fullest potential. Wow, something that I like so much that I am motivated to care for it to such a degree? Sign me up for the waitlist!

But wait… we do have this great gift I speak of. It’s a gift from God... to us.

Our lives.

One of the things that I find amazing about the Grace of God is that… wait for it… it’s for everyone. No matter what. Did you lie to your mom about who broke her favorite coffee mug? It’s for you. Did you steal from the local gas station, using a gun to threaten the cashier to comply? It’s for you, too. God does not judge the way we judge.

All sin is equal in God’s eyes. If you’ve sinned, you’ve sinned. There’s no denying, blaming, or pitying your way out of that fact. But the beautiful and wonderful thing is that Jesus died on the cross for all sins. You might be thinking, ‘What? It’s beautiful to you that Jesus died?!’ Well, in a way, yes, I do think it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful that I don’t have to suffer for eternity. It’s beautiful that someone loves and cares for me enough to have sent their son to die for me. It’s beautiful that all I have to do to receive this gift, and to see the giver in person someday, is to believe in the gift. The most amazing thing about this is it’s for everyone. Even you. Yes, someone out there, someone you may not believe in currently, died for you. That’s mind-blowing. It sounds like it was pulled straight out of a fiction love story. But it’s not fiction, it’s the wonderful reality that we live in. I don’t know about you, but that’s a wonderful gift that I will be sure to take full advantage of.