Blessings & Generosity

This week the youth gathered for the annual shoebox packing event for Operation Christmas Child. I don’t remember exactly when or how we started doing this, but it has become a major event for XSession Youth Group as well as X Factor Church as a whole. It’s always amazing to see the church come together to bring items to fill simple shoebox gifts that get distributed around the world, showing these kids that God loves them and that Christians love them as well. For many, this event is a highlight of their year, and is a significant part of their Christmas season. We fill the youth room with tables on tables overflowing with toys, stuffed animals, bars of soap, socks, crayons, pencils, toothbrushes, etc…; we pump Christmas music; we pray over the boxes and for the kids who will receive them; then we get to work, laughing and talking, as the tables empty and he stack of full, red & green, shoeboxes grows. It’s fun and awesome and joyful and humbling.

I’m always amazed, as we fill these boxes and watch stories of kids who receive them, at how much of an impact a dozen or so, very simple, items can make in a kid’s life. Things that most of us take for granted, that we have a ton of lying around somewhere: a gluestick, blanket, socks, calculator, crayons, ball, doll are things that can completely change these kids’ lives. It’s incredibly humbling to realize how much I have, and really how much everyone here has. It can be easy to look at your life and circumstances and compare them to others around you who are “better off” or compare them to ideals or visions of how things “ought to be,” and in so doing, become downtrodden about what you have. We are quick to forget the blessings that God has bestowed upon us, and the things that He has given us, while we only look forward to what “could be” and what we hope for. 

Operation Christmas Child is a reminder that God loves each and every one of us, and works in amazing ways to provide for us, exactly what we need, when we need it. 

In 2 Corinthians 9:8 we read “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

When we look at our lives, God truly has blessed us abundantly, just as He promises in John 10:10. That abundance may look different in your life than it does in mine, and we may not have everything that we want or even everything that we think we need, but God knows exactly what we truly need, and He is able and ready to provide.

So, this holiday season, I urge you to take a look at your life and acknowledge all of the amazing and wonderful things that God has blessed you with. Take time to thank Him for the things that you have that you need, and for the over and above things that you don’t need, but He has allowed you to have anyway. Then, be generous. God provides for His children, and He very well may use you to provide for kids across the world through a pair of socks in a shoebox, or for kids next door to you with a simple Christmas gift, or adults in your town through a meal or a paid utility bill, or simply through a genuine and heartfelt hug and time spent together, playing a game or drinking a cup of coffee. So, as it says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 (the verse immediately before the one about God blessing abundantly) “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Thank God for the abundance of His blessing and give generously and cheerfully.