Gift Wrapped

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Face after face.  They scroll through my mind’s eye like snapshots from a slideshow.  Every face I can ever remember.  Cheekbones, high like the peak of a tent.  A grey mustache.  Round eyes with milky whites.  A cheeky smile.  Tanned skin, tired eyes, a brown birthmark, freckles on creamy pale skin, a gentle flush on the cheeks. 

These snapshots float through my mind: faster than I can grab at them they slip through my fingers.  So I focus on the eyes: brown, forget-me-not blue, gold-flecked, long-lashed, oval, small, deep-set.  Dripping tears, shining green.  And those eyes, they lead me farther, to a place I can see parts of but cannot truly know—the soul.  The very breath of life in all of these people. 

God, He does not have merely the hundreds of faces I know flashing before Him.  He has all of the billions that belong to those who have lived in every year, in every nook of the globe, for every moment of their lives—He has all of those people before Him not as a flashing slideshow, but in steady focus.  And not just snapshots of faces, but absolute, intimate knowledge of their souls. 

But His omniscience does not end with mere knowledge of all of these souls.  Not only are you before the God of the Universe and known by Him in an infinite way, but He designed you, not as a two year old designs a Mr. Potato Head, and not in a haphazard act because He had run out of unique combinations, but with omniscient, sovereign purpose. 

Don’t you think He knew today would come when He knitted you together?  And don’t you think He planned you for tomorrow as well?  Don’t you think He even understood that there would come a point when you would fall on your face and cry out, “Why, God?  Why did you make me like this?  Why did you give me this great weakness, this thorn in my flesh?”  And don’t you think that God knows that that part of you that you most despise is truly your greatest gift?   

“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” --2 Corinthians 12:9-10

God sees you.  He sees and knows your soul.  He designed every aspect of you with care, precision, and love.  Health problems, heartaches, handicaps, enemies, flaws in beauty, strong wills, reserved temperaments, difficulties in school—no, these are not weaknesses according to our traditional understanding of the term, flaws that make you “less than.”  Anything is a gift that drives us to the foot of the cross, it is just that some of our gifts come wrapped in the paper of weakness. 

We can leave the gift unwrapped, the weakness weighing on our hearts and discouraging our souls, and many go to their grave with unopened gifts.  On the other hand, we can unwrap the painful package to reveal the priceless gift beyond that God yearns for us to discover. 

“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.  How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.”--Psalm 139:16-18