Amazing Gifts

Have you ever been given a gift that was so over-the-top that you were in a kind of mini-shock when you first realized that it was really for you?
The gift can take many forms but I can remember one that stays with me forever.
I remember sitting across the table from my not-yet-wife having coffee. We had dated before but hit some rocky ground and now we were just beginning to revisit the possibility of getting back together. Well--I should say that I was wanting that but Val was understandably hesitant.
But I remember sitting there and it seemed for the first time that there was a legitimate chance that it might happen and my heart soared! There was hope and it changed everything.
When I think of this I think of a gift: you see, there was nothing I could do to force or 'take' her heart for mine, it had to be given freely--it had to be a gift. And when she gave it to me I really was amazed!
I hear the same kind of tone when I read Paul trying explain what we are given from our Father in Heaven who loves us so much when he writes in Eph. 1:18 "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."
God wants us to be amazed by the gifts he gives us, just like I was sitting across from Val that day when hope sprang to life in me.

Jesus, many of us feel hope-less today and if we're honest with you don't even know what hope in you looks or feels like. I pray that all our hearts will be enlightened right now by your Holy Spirit, and that you would fill them with a hope that would be so powerful it would take our breath away.

May your gift change us through and through.

BT
Brian M Tysdal
Lead Pastor
Rock of Ages Church
Saskatoon Sask.
374-1707 (Church)
291-3308 (Cel)
pastorl.therock@sasktel.net