Matthew 7:11 If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. It seems like we have a theme going these last few days, about giving and receiving! Maybe it’s the Christmas season, or maybe God’s trying to pound something into my head. I’ve always heard it said that if God doesn’t give you the thing you ask for it’s because there’s something better He has for me later. I don’t know if that’s true or if He doesn’t give me the thing I ask for because I’m asking for something that’ll hurt me. However you want to look at it, God loves His children and isn’t going to give bad gifts. Look at Jesus, for example. You can’t get a much better gift than freedom, salvation, and eternity with God! But the ephemeral aside, He does give good gifts to us on this side of heaven. I recently watched a TED talk by the guy who followed all the rules of the Bible literally for a year (or at least most of them). Aside for the fact that he’s agnostic and he’s hilarious, the one part of the talk that stuck out to me what when he talked about thankfulness. He was referring to the verse that says to give thanks in all things. As he went through the year giving thanks for everything he said it made him realize how much he had to be thankful for. Whether you believe in God or not, we are far more blessed than we often realize. There are so many things to give thanks for, and that’s even more obvious in this season where we (hopefully) focus on giving to others. I love Christmas for the lights, the beauty, and the time off of work, but I also absolutely love buying Christmas presents! As difficult as it can be sometimes, I love finding and picking out presents that make people smile. And I think that’s what Christmas is partially about – loving the act of giving to others, which reflects God’s joy at giving to us. And, like this verse says, His gifts are good. I may not understand how it’s good right now (especially if it’s not what I asked for), but in the long run I will understand more, and hopefully appreciate the gifts He’s given to me.