Mixed reactions

I watched with interest and a little heart in mouth on Christmas Day, as our younger grandchildren opened their presents from us. I had spent a lot of time tracking down things I thought they might like, but had I made the right choices? Besides, they had already received wonderful gifts from their aunties and uncles. What were our contributions in comparison?

They opened their main presents from us first, followed by the bulging Christmas stocking we give our grandchildren each year. Yes, our almost-ten-year-old seemed to like the game we gave him and the books. But it was the much cheaper T-shirt that delighted him most—all because of one word on the pocket and a few symbols scattered elsewhere on it.

‘Oh, a Minecraft T-shirt!’ he exclaimed in an excited voice.

Yep, I had made the right choice!

I then watched our seven-year-old granddaughter open her gifts. Suddenly, joy lit up her face when she saw that pesky Mousetrap game—yay, it seemed I had again made the right choice. Then both children attacked their Christmas stockings. And how delighted they were to discover their favourite chocolatey things ever inside! Other little gifts I had included paled into insignificance when compared to those Smarties… and M and Ms… and chocolate frogs… and Cherry Ripe… and little jars of Nutella, as well as other sweet treats. Hmm.

During the course of that Christmas Day, I watched various adults too, as they opened their presents. Again, there were some delighted reactions, especially from one of our daughters when her husband surprised her with a brand-new phone. But other responses were a little more muted and restrained. In each case, the recipients might well have greatly appreciated their gifts, yet in some instances, I was left wondering. Did this person really get the gift she had wanted? Was that other person disappointed with theirs too? Had I made a big blunder with some of the presents we gave?

Then my mind turned to the reason we give and receive all these gifts. Supposedly, they serve as a symbol of our earthly love for one another that mirrors the heavenly love God showed us in sending Jesus—a kind of joyful reminder of the greatest Gift of all. But… well… how easily that reason can be lost! And how easily I myself had overlooked it, in my flurry of getting and giving! Surely, at Christmas—and at least before I step into another year—I needed to reflect so much more on the amazing God-given Gift at the core of Christmas.

We live in uncertain times, for sure. Who knows what 2022 will hold? Only God. Yet we have each been offered the wonderful privilege of stepping into this new year hand in hand with our Saviour who will always watch over us in love. May you and I not place this priceless Gift to one side, preferring other cheaper, more enticing things. May Jesus not receive any mixed reactions from us. Instead, may we welcome him into our lives with great joy and thankfulness and follow him wholeheartedly into whatever the future holds.

He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God… John 1:11-12 NLT

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The fine art of pre-judging

There we were on Christmas day, waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. I had put some cherries out for us to enjoy and offered one to our three-year-old granddaughter.

‘These are lovely, Maxine. Would you like one?’ I said.

She gazed at them for a moment, then came out with this profound statement.

‘I don’t like cherries because I’ve never had them before!’

Now that obviously made complete sense to her. After all, surely if her parents hadn’t given them to her before this, then those funny red things with stems must be yucky! I remembered too the response of one of our own children, when faced with eating something they hadn’t tasted previously. ‘I won’t like it!’ they would say, obviously fearful of what lay ahead.

Sadly, I suspect I can be like Maxine at times, or that child of ours.  Often I can be very picky—but more so with books than food.  I may find myself turned off by a cover I dislike or the quality of the paper or the size of the print. I don’t mind small print, but I do object when a large font is used and those lines are spread so far apart and the margins are so wide, making that book too insubstantial for me and not worth the money I paid for it! Yet some smaller books I own have turned out to be absolute gems, such as Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude or Eugene Petersen’s The Wisdom of Each Other.

Much sadder than pre-judging books, however, are the times I have pre-judged people because of their appearance or something different about them. The biggest lesson I learnt in this regard occurred around twenty-five years ago when I met a young woman at a prayer training course. At first, after discovering she was blind, I avoided her. I felt I would not know how to relate to someone who could not see. And, to my shame, I was reluctant to put myself out to help her. Yet God drew us together—and that young woman taught me so much about myself, about courage, about perseverance, about relating to those who suffer from any degree of vision impairment.

A few years later, I found myself at another course where most participants were from a different part of the Body of Christ. ‘They won’t be able to teach me anything much,’ I decided in complete arrogance. Yet their kind acceptance, attentiveness and intelligent conversation turned out to be a wonderful, healing gift from God for me.

Now I’m hoping there aren’t too many others of you out there like me who are practised pre-judgers.  I hope you taste those cherries or look carefully at those smaller books before making up your mind. I hope you listen to and accept others, however different they are. And I hope I do too more and more. But above all, if Jesus Christ is someone unfamiliar to you, I hope and pray that, in the coming year, you may not pre-judge or write him off too quickly but instead take time to get to know him, to experience his amazing love and to taste his absolute goodness for yourself.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8

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