Gift

From The Message Bible:
4 -5If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

Gifts are not earned. Gifts are given just because someone loves you. Sometimes they are easy to accept, sometimes not. It's much easier when you are giving a gift in return - then it feels more balanced or fair. It's actually easier to be the gift giver in my opinion. I love it when I find what I know is going to be the pefect gift for someone!

God is the ultimate gift giver. There is no way we can truly reciprocate. He never asks us to either. All He asks is for us to accept His gift! Yet we often seem to have a problem with that....

Life deals us some complicated issues. We think we've got a grasp until something comes up that completely baffles us. Even then, many times we try to conquer it on our own. But life is not a project at work. We do not earn wages for living. God does not give us a salary for good deeds or absence of sin. Everything He does for us is pure gift. All He asks for is faith. His gift is His ability to do the job called life for us. He knows its a job too big for us to handle on our own.

I definitely have some jobs I can't do on my own. I think its time I accept His gift. I realize His gift may take some unusal forms but I'm keeping an open mind. I can't wait to unwrap the next present He sends my way.

One more thought:
6 -9David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:

Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off,
whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.
Fortunate the person against
whom the Lord does not keep score. Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?

Apparently I am not the only gift recipient! How amazing is that? God wants to share the wealth with ALL of us - sinful or not! He does not keep score... love that. Zero pressure. Take it or leave it. I'm taking!