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| The Barnes Family 2012 |
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Receiving Lines
It turns out that blogging requires a skill I seem to lack in spades. An attention span. So, after a long hiatus away from my daddy blog, I bring you my final piece. As Christmas fast approaches and lines form at the shops and stoplights of our bustling and light-speckled streets, I want to pass on a few lines I have written about receiving.
I love Christmas time. Nothing brings the season’s joy as a father like hearing your children drop their subtle hints about what they hope Santa fills their stockings with. For example, “Dad, what I want for Christmas is the 2000XT Long Range Super T-Striker Dart Gun with expansion pack and laser scope. It’s $22.95 and if you want you can go to the store and buy it right now.”
As a parent I know the joy of seeing your child’s face light up with excitement as they unwrap the gift they wanted. I also know the utter frustration when it backfires as they turn the 2000XT Long Range Super T-Striker Dart Gun with expansion pack and laser scope you bought them on their sibling.
This year I have been lecturing my own children on how to receive. Here are the four steps to successful gift receiving I want for my own family. I hope they can encourage you to have a Merry Christmas.
step 1 - Find Your Name On the Naughty ListI’m not sure where Santa gets his “naughty and nice” list, but I am assuming a saint would have read Romans 3:10. The first aspect to receiving a gift is to recognize that it is a gift. The past two months I have been working for a retail store. Every two weeks they give me a paycheck. If they wrap my pay stub in a red bow and say the word “surprise” when they hand it to me, it does not make it a gift. How easily our children forget Romans 3:10 if we don’t remind them. Here is their thought process: “I’m a child + It is Christmas = I should get what I want.” Let’s push the metaphor a bit: “I’m a Christian + God loves me = I should get what I want. This past year has been filled with challenges for our family. We have lived in three countries, had three different jobs and the kids have attended three different schools. We definitely didn’t get everything we wanted. Each one of us in the Barnes clan struggled at different points of the journey with not having what we wanted. At the same time, He gave us so many gifts that we didn’t deserve. He opened our eyes to see things that we had never seen before.
If our expectation is that we deserve what we are about to receive, then we will find little lasting joy in the things received.
step 2 - Put Down What Your are Holding
If we are to receive a gift we must first release our grip on that which we are holding. I will jump strait to the metaphor as to shorten my already lengthy blog. This past year God gave us some amazing challenges. We had to let go of a lot of things. The material things were the easiest things to let go of. Some of the harder things to let go of were things like expectations of people and ourselves. Idols inside and out that needed to be destroyed. Often when God offers us gifts we have to let go of something to receive them. How easy it is to grip tightly to past memories or future hopes and risk missing out on the gift of the now. This Christmas will not be perfect, we won’t get everything we want. Next year will be full of challenges, and the past years were probably not as idyllic as we remember. But God has something for us today, and if we find ourselves holding on to something else we will fail to receive the wonderful things He has for us.
For us this past year I cannot begin to list the gifts God has given our family. The new and deep friendships with people all over this world. From Hungary to Great Britain to the Philippines to Myanmar to Korea. We have seen and done wonderful and amazing things. Yes we let go of many things this past year, but God has filled our arms with gifts of friendships and experiences that are priceless.
step 3 - Remember That the Gift Is From Somebody
Maybe the worst part of a gift from Santa is that he didn’t even stick around to watch you open it. Gifts are not meant to exist in themselves. They signify a relationship. The most important part of a gift is not “what it is” but “whom its from.”
step 4 - Never Forget the Definition of the Word Gift
One of the greatest frustrations I have experienced in my life is walking through a department store and hearing the words “we have to get them a gift.”
I am trying to encourage our family not to “expect” gifts from people this season.
I am also trying to encourage our gift giving to stem from our desire to give.
Gifts are about choices not about requirements. Here are a few choices you may find helpful this holiday season.
Choice #1 - Buy a “gift” card. Then on the tag write “In exchange for your gift, which I am guessing you spent $20 on, I am giving you this $15 payment card to a coffee stand so that you will know that I am only worth $5 dollars more than you in our friendship. Merry Christmas!”
Choice #2 - Spend time thinking about how much you love your friend and write them a note telling them that you love them and appreciate their friendship.
Choice #3 - Buy everyone who is a huge baseball fan Mariner season tickets. (Just in case Bill Gates has been reading my Blog).
Gifts are not something we have to do. They are a choice we make. As someone who has now worked as a seasonal worker in a retail store, I must admit that I question whether we are making good choices at Christmas time with our gifts.
Now some Scripture and a final Christmas preachy thought.
I will close my thoughts with one of my favorite but not often read Christmas story versions that comes from the Gospel of John. It is my verse for this Christmas for my family. It stands as a reminder that Christmas is about a people who were on the naughty list, whose hands constantly held tight to religious pride and selfish idolatry. They were given a great gift and those who received, not only received forgiveness but the right and privilege to a relationship with God. This gift of light, truth, peace, hope and love came at a great price. But God hid the price from us, and wrapped the gift in swaddling cloths. He gives us freely so much that we cannot fathom. My prayer for our family and yours is that we would be able to receive freely that which Christ Jesus purchased for us.
Merry Christmas to all our beloved friends around the World,
In Christ Our Savior,
The Barnes Family
I love Christmas time. Nothing brings the season’s joy as a father like hearing your children drop their subtle hints about what they hope Santa fills their stockings with. For example, “Dad, what I want for Christmas is the 2000XT Long Range Super T-Striker Dart Gun with expansion pack and laser scope. It’s $22.95 and if you want you can go to the store and buy it right now.”
As a parent I know the joy of seeing your child’s face light up with excitement as they unwrap the gift they wanted. I also know the utter frustration when it backfires as they turn the 2000XT Long Range Super T-Striker Dart Gun with expansion pack and laser scope you bought them on their sibling.
This year I have been lecturing my own children on how to receive. Here are the four steps to successful gift receiving I want for my own family. I hope they can encourage you to have a Merry Christmas.
step 1 - Find Your Name On the Naughty ListI’m not sure where Santa gets his “naughty and nice” list, but I am assuming a saint would have read Romans 3:10. The first aspect to receiving a gift is to recognize that it is a gift. The past two months I have been working for a retail store. Every two weeks they give me a paycheck. If they wrap my pay stub in a red bow and say the word “surprise” when they hand it to me, it does not make it a gift. How easily our children forget Romans 3:10 if we don’t remind them. Here is their thought process: “I’m a child + It is Christmas = I should get what I want.” Let’s push the metaphor a bit: “I’m a Christian + God loves me = I should get what I want. This past year has been filled with challenges for our family. We have lived in three countries, had three different jobs and the kids have attended three different schools. We definitely didn’t get everything we wanted. Each one of us in the Barnes clan struggled at different points of the journey with not having what we wanted. At the same time, He gave us so many gifts that we didn’t deserve. He opened our eyes to see things that we had never seen before.
If our expectation is that we deserve what we are about to receive, then we will find little lasting joy in the things received.
step 2 - Put Down What Your are Holding
If we are to receive a gift we must first release our grip on that which we are holding. I will jump strait to the metaphor as to shorten my already lengthy blog. This past year God gave us some amazing challenges. We had to let go of a lot of things. The material things were the easiest things to let go of. Some of the harder things to let go of were things like expectations of people and ourselves. Idols inside and out that needed to be destroyed. Often when God offers us gifts we have to let go of something to receive them. How easy it is to grip tightly to past memories or future hopes and risk missing out on the gift of the now. This Christmas will not be perfect, we won’t get everything we want. Next year will be full of challenges, and the past years were probably not as idyllic as we remember. But God has something for us today, and if we find ourselves holding on to something else we will fail to receive the wonderful things He has for us.
For us this past year I cannot begin to list the gifts God has given our family. The new and deep friendships with people all over this world. From Hungary to Great Britain to the Philippines to Myanmar to Korea. We have seen and done wonderful and amazing things. Yes we let go of many things this past year, but God has filled our arms with gifts of friendships and experiences that are priceless.
step 3 - Remember That the Gift Is From Somebody
Maybe the worst part of a gift from Santa is that he didn’t even stick around to watch you open it. Gifts are not meant to exist in themselves. They signify a relationship. The most important part of a gift is not “what it is” but “whom its from.”
step 4 - Never Forget the Definition of the Word Gift
One of the greatest frustrations I have experienced in my life is walking through a department store and hearing the words “we have to get them a gift.”
I am trying to encourage our family not to “expect” gifts from people this season.
I am also trying to encourage our gift giving to stem from our desire to give.
Gifts are about choices not about requirements. Here are a few choices you may find helpful this holiday season.
Choice #1 - Buy a “gift” card. Then on the tag write “In exchange for your gift, which I am guessing you spent $20 on, I am giving you this $15 payment card to a coffee stand so that you will know that I am only worth $5 dollars more than you in our friendship. Merry Christmas!”
Choice #2 - Spend time thinking about how much you love your friend and write them a note telling them that you love them and appreciate their friendship.
Choice #3 - Buy everyone who is a huge baseball fan Mariner season tickets. (Just in case Bill Gates has been reading my Blog).
Gifts are not something we have to do. They are a choice we make. As someone who has now worked as a seasonal worker in a retail store, I must admit that I question whether we are making good choices at Christmas time with our gifts.
Now some Scripture and a final Christmas preachy thought.
“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—”
John 1:9-12
Merry Christmas to all our beloved friends around the World,
In Christ Our Savior,
The Barnes Family
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