Giving Precious Gifts

One of my favorite giving stories happened many years ago at Linda’s parents’ home.  The family had gathered, including my young nieces Jennifer, Natalie, and Christi, all married and mothers now.  Basil, Linda’s dad, thought Jennifer, his oldest granddaughter, was old enough to wear a watch, so he had bought her one.  She opened her gift, and burst into a big grin and hugged Basil in thanks.  While Jennifer was bursting into a grin, her younger sister, Natalie, was bursting into tears.  She watched Jennifer open her watch and, with trembling lip and watery eyes, came to Basil and said, “Granddaddy, you didn’t get me a watch?” In that moment, Basil realized that he’s made an honest mistake.  He didn’t think Natalie was old enough to care about a watch, but he forgot that she was old enough to feel left behind by an older sibling.  “Of course I have a watch for you,” he answered in a moment of inspired generosity, as he took his watch off of his wrist and gave it to her.  I don’t know if she kept it or if Basil later exchanged it for one like Jennifer’s, but I do know that when you love someone, you’re willing to give them what you treasure. 

When the Wise Men met Jesus, their reverence for Him, their love for Him, compelled them to give Him some of the most precious things they had. 

(Matthew 2:11b) Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

I know that many gifts have been exchanged today in the circles of family and friendship.  That’s a beautiful part of the Christmas experience.  But if you have that hunger in your heart for Christmas to make a bigger difference in your life, then let me ask you a question, as I ask myself,

What precious gift have you given to Jesus?

If you’ve found Jesus for yourself, if you love Him with all your heart and soul, if you strive to follow Him as the Lord of your life, then you will give Him the most precious gifts you have.  What you give Him changes your life.  

God Ships Before We Order

I was driving to a Christmas program where my friend, Don Grant, and I were to share some music of the season.  My cell phone rang, displaying a number I did not recognize with an area code from out of state.  My first thought was to let the phone ring and let the caller leave a message.  So many calls from unknown callers end up being robo-marketing calls or wrong numbers.  For whatever reason, I decided to answer this one.  The caller identified himself as Kenneth, a missionary with Baptist Medical and Dental Missions International.  Kenneth serves at the Thomas Herrington Bible Institute in Honduras, a school that trains Honduran pastors to serve Honduran churches.  Kenneth said he was calling me because he heard that I have been known to bring or send a guitar to Honduras that doesn’t make the return trip.  The guitars I take are given to a local pastor whose church doesn’t have any musical instruments for worship.  Kenneth said that one of the pastors at the school had recently started a new church in a very poor area and had no instruments for their worship services.  He wondered if I could find a way to send a guitar for this church as soon as possible.  I let his request sink in for a moment, then I answered, “Kenneth, the guitar is already on the way.”  Three months before I received Kenneth’s request, I had put a guitar in the hands of a pastor who is going to Honduras with a mission team in January.  I told Kenneth I would be sure the guitar got to him so he could give it to this student.  In God’s great plan and provision, the guitar was on the way before the request for it was made.  God ships before we order. 

For the past four years, I’ve undertaken a mission project I call “One-Way Guitars.”  Not surprisingly, I chose a name with a double meaning.  The guitars travel one-way to Honduras because they are given to churches in need.  The guitars are also “one way” because they are sent for the purpose of helping local churches lead people to Christ, the one way to salvation. 

The guitars I send are used instruments donated by people who have a guitar in their home that is not being used.  I receive these donated instruments, make small repairs and adjustments to them, equip them with extra strings, guitar picks, a guitar strap and an electronic tuner, and take or send them to Honduras.  I couldn’t imagine that so small a gift could have such a huge impact upon a church or bring such encouragement to the pastors of these poor congregations. 

If you have a guitar that you’re not using and want to send to the mission field, I hope you’ll contact me at deevaughan@standrewsbaptist.org. You can know the joy of equipping a church to worship Christ and spread the good news.  

Don't Walk Past the Gift

I enjoy playing tricks with Christmas gifts.  I like to disguise packages.  I give clues without giving away the secret.  I add rocks to the contents of boxes to make them heavier.  But of all the Christmas present tricks I’ve played, this one is my favorite.  I bought Linda a necklace as a Christmas present and was preparing to wrap it and put in beneath our tree.  How boring! I thought.  I had a better idea.  I took the necklace out of the box and took it to our daughter Elizabeth’s room.  Atop her book and toy shelves sat a collectible doll--a doll which she was not, at her tender young age, yet allowed to touch.  I put the necklace around the doll’s neck, in plain view, and waited to see what would happen.  Linda walked past that shelf and that doll and her necklace many times every day, but saw nothing.  Every day I waited for a telephone call at work from her, declaring her great discovery, but she continued to see nothing.  Finally, Christmas came and she opened the little jewelry box.  Inside it was a card which read,

I'm sorry that this box is bare,

But Elizabeth's doll had nothing to wear.

See the doll shelf for your gift. 

Finally, she walked to the shelf, examined the dolls and found her gift.  I was amazed at how she walked past that doll time after time and never saw that it displayed a gift for her.  Linda is not alone.  Many of us do that very same thing with the entire Christmas season.  We may not walk by our Christmas gifts from each other and not notice them, but we will do something far more tragic.  Many of us will walk through the season and never see the gift it offers us from God. 

In Luke 2, we read the story of Mary and Joseph taking the infant Jesus to the temple to dedicate him to God.  As I think about their journey to the temple, I imagine how many people saw this little family en route to Jerusalem.  Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus came face to face with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people on that trip, but none of them, not even the priests in the temple, saw this baby for who He really was, a gift of hope from God.  No one that is, except a man named Simeon, and a woman named Anna.  They are singled out in the story as those rare persons who saw much more than the dedication of a child.  They saw, in the face of Jesus, the gift of God’s salvation.

May we not walk through life and never see the gift it offers to us from God.  May we, like Simeon and Anna, be counted among those who have eyes to see the gift and hearts ready to receive it and rejoice.