The GIFT Giver
This Season, Experience the ULTIMATE Giver of Gifts
Ephesians 2:8, ‘For by grace you have been saved! Nothing you did could ever earn this salvation, for it was the love gift from God that brought us to Christ!’ (TPT)
December 12th, 2022
the GIFT: a Promise
Far above the velvety carpet of rambling undergrowth formed of traveling vines, wandering ivy and exotic flora, the Giver gazed upon the coming storm clouds. The calm before the storm. Lapping on distant shores, rolled in lazy waves, and silly dolphins frolicked with gulls. The cry of sealions could be heard by His acute ear. There was an excitement that beat in His chest even though He felt great sorrow at what was soon to come. It seemed like just yesterday He had felt such joy as He breathed life into the lungs of His first being. So much had happened since then, and it brought the Giver deep anguish as He realized He regretted the mankind He had created. So much cursing and violence and insolence and evil darkened the days now, and He had to admit to Himself, He was finished. With this nonsense, He was done.
The wooden vessel had been being built for almost longer than He could recall now. The Giver hoped He would never have to use it, but it seemed humanity had left Him little choice. As the last nail was set into place, and at the final thud of metal on metal as the spike was driven into the stern, the Giver dropped His chin to His chest. He wanted to weep at the waste it all amounted to. Quite soon, out of all the creation He had made, only a handful would remain.
The Giver felt grateful there had been at least someone whom He could assign the great task to that He had, and now beneath Him, His eyes swept over the chaos below. His servant Noah would someday seem an unlikely candidate for this responsibility, however, no one would ever understand His vetting process. Doubtful that He, the Giver, would ever work alongside those who had it all figured out, or so they thought. He would forever choose exactly the opposite of what the human mind might comprehend.
Two by two, creatures were being prodded up a sturdy ramp and into the innards of the vessel, and just as the final two of every living thing entered the ark, the first droplets welled in the Giver’s eyes, until a steady stream began to fall. The Giver ran grizzled fingers through His flowing beard as the door slammed shut far below the tree where He stood. He thought aloud to Himself, “Rain…I will call this ‘rain’, which has never before been seen, and it will destroy the inhabitants of the world I made because I am sorry I made them.” And with a heart as heavy as the entire domain He’d created, the Giver began to weep. And for endless days and nights, the tears kept coming and the torrential downpour continued falling, swallowing everything in its path, drenching all that lived and breathed. The Giver had never felt so forlorn. Everything He had created for the beings He loved—and most beings too—gone. Just like that, gone.
Eventually, the soaking, immersing sadness and rain had to come to an end, and the Giver commandeered the process with an tremendous hole inside His soul. He almost could not bear to bring the vessel to rest, nor could He conceive of opening the heavy door to let its inhabitants out, even though He reckoned they were restless and fatigued. He imagined the fear He would see scribbled across their faces, and at once pictured the gift He wanted to send them. With a flourish, He scrawled a ribbon of colors across the sky, and as the rains began to dry up, He murmured in His heart, “This shall be a sign that never again will I curse the ground, nor will I destroy all living things as I have done.”
1 Corinthians 1:27, ‘But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.’
