Waiting on the Gift

Waiting on the Gift

As I wrap the Christmas gifts for friends and family, so many thoughts go through my mind. I think about the people for which each gift was chosen. I consider what they mean in my life and pray for what the year ahead may hold for them. Gift giving is not a random thing to me. I carefully choose each item specifically for the individual to which I am giving. Even the wrapping paper is something I consider based on who is receiving the gift.

Once the gifts are beautifully wrapped, they are placed under the tree where they will remain unopened until Christmas day. Packages may be observed by the recipients, but the content beneath the wrapping paper remains a mystery. Anticipation and excitement mount as the day draws near. The waiting and inability to open the gift add to the delight when the moment to open gifts finally arrives.

The wrapping experience has caused me to consider the ways of God. He also has carefully chosen gifts for each of us, considering our personality and life plans from before the time we are even born. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew [and] approved of you [as My chosen instrument], and before you were born I separated and set you apart, consecrating you; [and] I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5 AMP) He knows our every day. “My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery]. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:15-16 AMP) He does not randomly pick gifts and talents for His children, but rather carefully considers our natures, our preferences and our callings.

Just as we have to wait for Christmas to open our gifts, we often have to wait for the proper time for God to move in an area of our lives. Jesus came, lived and died at the perfect time. “While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6 AMP)
Likewise, He will move in our lives at just the perfect time. Only God knows exactly when that is. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 AMP) It may seem like waiting takes forever, but our Emmanuel, God with us, remains at our sides every step of our lives. Even in silence He is in control.

The Messiah was prophesied hundreds of years before His birth. ^“Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the young woman who is unmarried and a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us].” (Isaiah 7:14 AMP) There also have been many other prophecies that Jesus filled. All of these, when they were first made, were promises of things yet to come. We have also had promises from God that may not have yet been fulfilled. We can confidently wait because we know that God does not go back on his promises. “God is not a man, that He should tell or act a lie, neither the son of man, that He should feel repentance or compunction [for what He has promised]. Has He said and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken and shall He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19 AMP) The apostle Paul also stated, “[Resting] in the hope of eternal life, [life] which the ever truthful God Who cannot deceive promised before the world or the ages of time began.” (Titus 1:2 AMP) God cannot deceive and will not withhold His promises to His children.

Just as Christmas day will eventually arrive and time to open our gifts will come with it, the time will also come for us to open each and every gift that the Lord has given us. We will receive with excitement those things that are exactly what we have wanted and needed. “Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].” (James 1:17 AMP) On that day, the wait will have been worth it.

As you wait for Christmas Day and the opening of gifts to arrive, remain confident that waiting for all that God has planned for you is on its way. Do not be concerned with what you have not yet received, but live in eager anticipation of each gift God has for you.