The Gift Giver

A great religious thinker whose name I cannot recall once said, “The Lord is often present in our lives in things that we do not dream possess any significance. We ask God about something which needs His mighty working, and the very instrument by which He is to work is by our side, perhaps for weeks and months and years — all unrecognized, until suddenly someday it grows luminous and glorious with the very presence of the Lord, and becomes the mighty instrument of His victorious working.

“God loves to show His hand through the unexpected. Often He keeps us from seeing His way until just before He opens it, and then, immediately, it is unfolded, and we find that He was walking by our side in the very thing, long before we even suspected its meaning.” These words remind me of a story told to me by Jaybird, my boyhood best friend and mentor. He and I were sitting on his front porch one Sunday afternoon, relaxing and looking across the endless verdant green fields of my father’s Mississippi Delta cotton farm. “Boy,” the old black man said, “Yo’ Maker has got whole boxcar loads of gifts dat He can’t wait to give to His chillun, and some o’ dem is jes’ fuh you.” “Really?” I answered.

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He explained that God is always waiting to tap me on the shoulder and say, “Here, My son, this is for you,” and He is always certain to give me something I need. But, my mentor warned, the devil is equally determined to keep me from receiving those gifts. “Satan is de gift taker; God is de Gift Giver,” he said. “He is wit’ you always, boy, but to git His gifts you must be wit’ Him. When you sin and let Satan stop you fum doin’ right, de lawd is still wit’ you, but He holds off givin’ you gifts until you straighten up and turn away fum Satan’s temptations.” “Now, you only fifteen years old — still wet behind de ears — so de Gift Giver is apt to forgive quicker now than He will later on. De older you git, de less patience He gwine have and de longer He will wait to give you gifts,” Jaybird warned. “When yo’ daddy turned you over to me and told me to teach you to work, you wuz only ten years old, so I knew I had to look de other way sometimes when you didn’ do what I said. But as you got older, I started comin’ down on you hard fuh not mindin’ me, and de older you git de harder I gwine git on you. Dat’s my way ’cause dat’s de Lawd’s way.” Now, sixty years later, the beloved old man’s words are as vivid as ever. God wants to tap me on the shoulder and show His love for me. All I have to do is obey Him … because He was, is, and always will be: The Gift Giver.