Giving Gifts Cards to God

What do you get for a God who has everything?

Every year in June, I turn another year older. I tell my wife Susan to let our family and friends know that I don’t want any party or gifts. She lovingly reminds me that it’s not my birthright to command how or what the people in my life want to celebrate. Then people start calling her to ask what I want, despite the fact I really don’t want anything.

I know I risk sounding like an ungrateful tool in this post. Please don’t misunderstand, I appreciate all the gifts I receive. But sometimes I wonder if anyone has really been paying attention to me at all when they don’t know what to get me. Maybe I’m too much of a puzzle and no one can figure me out. But I don’t need another gift card.

Think back to the last time you were given a gift card for an important event like your birthday or anniversary or graduation. I don’t mean a thoughtful gift card to your favorite restaurant or tuba lessons or indoor skydiving. I mean a Visa card. How did it make you feel?

I’ve been guilty of lazy giving plenty of times. Deep down, every time I give a gift card, I worry that what I’m saying is not, “happy birthday dear friend,” but instead, “I didn’t take the time to think about you or get to know what you’d really like.”

I feel even worse asking a friend what they want. Turning the tables, I don’t really want my friends to tell me what they want, either. In both cases, the moment is robbed of intimacy and becomes a transaction rather than a gift. What message does this send? We don’t know each other well. I was lazy. I didn’t want to disappoint so I played it down the middle. Getting deep with you seems risky. I’m not giving this to you out of love, I’m giving this to you out of obligation.

Gift recipients are perhaps more happy with a gift they requested than a gift that surprised them, one might argue. But what is more important, a gift or a thoughtful giver? Personally, I’d rather have the worst gift given with a thoughtful heart than a $1,000 gift card.

“God, why won’t you just tell me what you want,” is so often my question. “God, why can’t you be more obvious?”

God seems to like surprises. I’ve been surprised many times in life by the methods and dependability of God’s goodness. Risking heresy — can an omniscient God every truly be surprised — I conjecture that God likes receiving surprises, too. Maybe surprise is the wrong word. Maybe what God likes is our willingness to spend time discerning God’s will and then actually taking the time and effort to get out and do it. It’s important to God that we do it our way, not just God’s way.

Why doesn’t God make God’s will more obvious? Why doesn’t God just tell us what to do? Why doesn’t God write God’s signature in the skies for all to see? To do so would take away your opportunity to meet God halfway in a relationship. If your best friend tells you what to get them as a gift, you better get it for them or risk blatant disregard. If God tells you, then you really have no reasonable choice in the equation. There is no room to learn and grow in real companionship. There would only be yes or no, black or white, no middle space to play and love. God loves your free will because that’s the basis of loving relationships. Getting something out of you by compulsion — and make no mistake, if God were that obvious then every part of our relationship as created beings would be a compelled act — doesn’t make God happy. God doesn’t want your gift cards anymore than I do.

Sometimes God speaks directly, through scripture, through intuition, through the voice of a fellow congregant. But don’t be frustrated when God expects something relational of us the same way we would give a great gift to a friend, by us watching and listening and then responding in love.