Extravagant Love

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called children of God!

1 John 3:1

I am admittedly one of the most unthoughtful people on the planet. Remembering birthdays, sending the encouraging card, and picking up the phone just to say 'hey' are just not my strong points. Because I am not a girl who needs these things, I forget that others do. And, just so you know, saying I don't need someone to express love towards me is not giving myself a compliment. It's actually a very enormous independence problem I have that I'll work to overcome until the day I die.

Now my hubby Luke is an entirely different story. Thoughtfulness comes naturally to him and he will go to great lengths to bless me. Luke's latest extravagance involved his scrimping and saving to buy me a laptop for Christmas with a card that said, "Because I know God has huge plans for you..."

I still swoon.

And, no, you may not have him.

So what did I do when he made this grand presentation? Well, obviously I cried like a baby but immediately afterward I went into guilt mode because I didn't have a single, solitary thing to surprise him with. In this unwritten code of mine it is necessary to return in the same measure in which I receive. That can present a huge problem when my thoughtfulness kicks in once its too late to reciprocate. What's a girl to do when she realizes she lacks the resources to match the gift?

This is actually a false dilemma. Luke didn't give me the computer because he thought I would give him a flatscreen television. (Though he would have totally appreciated it, I'm sure.) He wasn't gracious to me so I would return love to him out of indebtedness. He did it because, in his own words, he 'wanted to'. He believes God has a calling on my life and he wanted to be used of Him to provide a tool to make it easier to fulfill. It would have been a slap in the face to Luke for me to put the computer on a shelf and not use it because I couldn't get past the fact I couldn't adequately repay him.

I wonder how many of us, including myself, hold this same attitude towards God? He has given us the gift of an extravagant love that we can not possibly earn or ever repay. I've known people who spend their days trying to accomplish enough good works to one day feel they deserve what they've been given. I know others who feel so guilty because they can't return the gift in full measure that they don't try at all. Instead they place the gift on the shelf until they feel 'good enough' to use it. I'm ashamed to say I've found myself in both places. Have you?

There are some things given we can never adequately repay. Luke's gift helped me to understand even more the proper response to God's favor. I may never be able to say thank you enough, but what I can do is type away on this keyboard to God's glory and Luke's delight. I can choose to love out of gratitude rather than a twisted sense of indebtedness. I can live with an attitude of thanksgiving to The One who scrimped so He could save me. Through this show of extravagant grace, he provided the tool of salvation I needed in order to accomplish my purpose on this earth.

I still swoon.

And, yes, I'll share Him with you.

(But you still can't have Luke. That sweetheart is all mine.....)

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