The holiday season has just passed and as I think about the loved ones I worked to surprise with gifts that I knew would delight their hearts, I can’t help but reflect on and be overwhelmed by the way God gives to us. For much of my life – well, if we’re being honest, for the majority of my life – I have always viewed blessings as accidents, coincidences or thrown bones.

Too often, I get caught up in a false tit-for-tat gospel. I do x because it ensures y. God does y because x binds him to do so. I am reminded again that false gospels always lie to us about who God truly is and what motivates him. A relationship with Christ frees us from the broken business model of this world. We are not bound by contracts but instead have freedom.

As I meditate more on the truth that we have not been called into a new slavery, but into a true freedom, I am delighted to realize that God gives because he loves. The blessings in my life are not due to some haphazard smattering of happenings. The blessings in my life also aren’t due to my own work to achieve them. I have finally realized that God isn’t in the business of throwing us bones.

No, God is purposeful in freely and generously giving his children blessings. Why does he do this? The same thing that motivated him to give his son for our ransom is the same thing that motivates him to continue to pour out blessings in our lives: love.

In the same way that I worked to find the perfect holiday gift for a loved one, God works to touch us in a way only he can. To think that God uses his knowledge of my inmost being to cater blessings to my life simply because he loves me is overwhelming. Looking back on my life’s blessings through this lens is like being blessed all over again. Knowing God had an intimate hand in crafting the people, places, experiences and things that have brought me joy throws me into a fit of giggles.

During this last season of thanksgiving, I gave thanks begrudgingly. I am guilty of viewing it as my duty to thank God, but not as my passion. Because I have been ignorant of the way that he loves and the way that he gives, I have been incapable of truly giving thanks. Now, however, I am deeply touched to know my ignorance is forgiven and that my blessings are running over.

When we have the truth of who God is and why he gives, we will have the freedom to rejoice.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” Romans 8:15

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