Why It’s Better To Give

Sometimes I am at a total loss when I think about writing a Christmas article. What could I possibly write that hasn’t been written before?

Well, there is one thing that has become very clear to me when I think about Christmas; it is better to give than to receive. Someone said that once, didn’t they? Yes, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, said it, as quoted by the apostle Paul in Acts 20:35.

When I say, “It is better to give than to receive,” it has more and more been my experience in recent years. The wide-eyed child at Christmas time can hardly wait to tear open his or her presents to see if what was desired was gotten. After many Christmases, however, one usually tends to enjoy watching children get their gifts and to experience the warmth and love of friends and family. And, in many cases, the giving brings more joy than the receiving.

At this point in my life, I can honestly say, the giving of gifts brings me more joy than receiving them. In our marriage, Lorraine does more of the giving than I do, and together we have many times witnessed the gratitude of the receiver. One might say gift-giving is Lorraine’s thing. She is always giving something to someone, and she tries always to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Often she will say, “When I saw “such and such item,” in a store, I knew it was for so and so, and she’ll name someone.

Once she came home with a multi-colored mixing bowl with an outdoors sportsman type look and announced she would send it to a friend of ours who lives alone on 160 acres of wooded property. The bowl was quite large and required a sizable box to ship it.

Another time she mailed a container of home-made soup to another friend who lives alone in Minneapolis. In both cases the postage was significant. Some would say, “That’s really impractical.”

No. Not at all.

When you go through great effort to get a special gift to a friend . . . that’s called “caring.” 

The more unusual the act (like mailing soup), the more the recipient recognizes the care and love that went into the whole rig-a-ma-role. The love is perhaps more in the act, than in the gift itself.

Some years ago, a good friend had 12 oak trees in his backyard that had contracted oak wilt. In a conversation, he mentioned that he could not afford to hire someone to remove them. He did not realize that I had practically grown up with a chainsaw in my hands. In northern Minnesota, our winter work was always to cut pulpwood for the paper mill in International Falls.

“I’ll do it for you,” I said . . . and I did.

To take down each tree, I climbed up with my chainsaw and took it down in thirds from the top down. This was the only way to do it as there were several power lines running through the back yard.  I didn’t think twice about doing this job for my friend and I enjoyed doing it.

(Of course, this was several years ago. Now, Lorraine would not hear of me climbing up in a tree with a chainsaw.)

The Baby Jesus was given to us at Christmas time through great trouble and planning by His Father God. Why?

Well, maybe this story told by the newscaster, Paul Harvey, some years ago explains it best.

A farmer encountered a flock of sparrows in his barnyard, just as a severe winter storm was breaking. “If these sparrows get caught in the blizzard, they will likely freeze to death,” he thought. “I’ll try to shew them into my barn where they will be safe.”

But try as he might to herd them into the barn, they would not go. They didn’t understand that he was trying to help them.

“If only I could become one of them,” he said. “Then they would understand.”

. . . And that’s exactly what Jesus did.

He became on of us, born at Christmastime in a humble stable.

He came to earth to save us, eventually to die on the cross for our sins.

And that’s why to give is better than to receive . . . because He gave everything He had . . . the gift of Himself, to us which was fulfillment of God’s promise.

Photograph designed and taken by Lorraine