Exchanging Gifts With Bill & Melinda

If Time magazine's Persons of the Year Bill and Melinda Gates, the richest couple in the world, stop by our house this week with a Christmas gift for me, I’m ready for them.

Yes. Big Lots had chocolate covered cherries on sale for 99 cents a box; these make great retaliatory gifts.

You don’t know what I mean?

A retaliatory gift is when somebody you don’t expect to brings you a gift and you haven’t bought anything for them,so you run in the back room and bring out some generic trinket and say, “O I haven’t had time to wrap your’s yet” and give them something just to keep from admitting that you haven’t given that person a thought.

They give you a gift, so you retaliate with some gift of your own.

That way you can feel smug and equal.

You ain’t beholden to anybody.

You are a giver, not a receiver.

Ain’t in anybody’s debt.

You are a player.

Sound cheesy?

Well, yes it is.

But we all want to be superior givers, not humble receivers.

So when Bill and Melinda come over to deliver my Rolls Royce with the red bow on top, I’ll proudly hand them a box of chocolate covered cherries in exchange.

Sound ludicrous?

Absolutely ridiculous?

Maybe so.

But you and I do something like that all the time.

There is Someone who gives us a gift of great value, and we attempt to avoid the embarrassment of being receivers by trying to hand Him something or another in exchange – Like, maybe, a tube of Neosporin for those places on His hands.

What says the Scripture?

“By grace are ye saved through faith…. It is the gift of God,…”

But instead of receiving, instead of accepting His gift, all too often I feel proud and offer Him some trinket – “Here’s my life. I’m gonna live for Jesus from now on” –

When I do that, I feel as though I'm offering Him a box of chocolate covered cherries after I've already eaten half of them.

Why not simply say ‘Thank You” and enjoy His gift gratefully?

Isn’t that a bit more realistic?