Godlythinking         

A Precious Gift 

There are a number of elderly men and women with graying hair who have in the past received gifts that were put aside and ignored. While they thank the person for the thinking of them, they had no use for the gift and put the gift on the closet shelf where they stored things that went unused. Such was the case when I took care of my father before he past away. Within his possessions I found several shirts in the factory wrapping that were in new condition, but not old enough to take to the antique road show. It was also surprising while these gifts went unused he was comfortable wearing clothing he used before retiring from his job over thirty years ago. 

I have to admit that some of the gifts my father had were shirts I wouldn’t be caught dead in and I my father must have felt the same way. However, there was one gift my father never put on the shelf and he used every day of his life as far back as I can remember. This gift was a special gift, given by the creator of life and father of mankind.  

What was so precious about this gift was the nature of the gift. This gift was formally seated beside the throne of God in glory. However, to appreciate this gift you would have to understand that the person seated at the right side of glory had to lower himself to that of a servant. You see, he came as a servant of God to free my father from his sin and to reconcile him to God.  

This gift was special in another way as he was born of a virgin named Mary as Emanuel, God with us. Jesus Christ came to live in my father by a special way in the he was born again by God will when almost the whole world has put him away in the closet or on a shelf out of sight. For most of his life my father was an avid Christian, being a founding member of his local Church and board member for more than thirty years. During that time he saw many pastors come and go and saw the attendance of his church rise from 8 members to 150 and drop back down to 8.  

Still my father refused to let go of the gift of life clinging to Jesus Christ even when you would have thought it was impossible for him to do so. In his final years, after his second wife had died, dementia took control of his mind. There were days when I visited him in the nursing home and wondered why he looked at me as if I was a stranger. My father told me that he could not comprehend anything he read so I became his legal guardian, but that didn’t stop him from sitting in his favorite armchair, sleeping as usual. His legs were crossed and even then that worn out Bible was lying across just like I remembered it as a child.  He may not have comprehended anything he read, but he was still seeking the face of his Savior.

You see, my father refused to let go of his precious gift and I saw with my own eyes that Jesus Christ was deeply ingrained into his life.  He continued to seek the gift his father gave him at an early age. My father’s example has been something hard to talk about. However, there is something we should be asking. What was it that drew my father to his worn out Bible when he could no longer comprehend what he was reading? It wasn’t the pages of the Bible that was drawing my father, it had to be his life long friend Jesus Christ who was whispering Come home.