Dad gifts

What’s the best thing you ever got from your Dad? 

Dads give good gifts. My dad gave me puppies and ponies and hatchets and BB guns. He gave me golf clubs and cars. He gave me a lot of advice, some of which I still remember and some that I wish I did. 

Dads want us to be better, but they also like us to have fun. Moms nurture us to grow and be healthy; dads stretch us to be resilient and capable. Of course these are generalities, and individual moms and dads are on a spectrum or sometimes flip these characteristics. But moms tend to always be there, loving us and growing us. Dads tend to be distracted with work and then make up for it with a little too much extravagance.

So I think Dads give good gifts. They love making us happy. 

This morning I saw the father-son relationship of God in a little different way, because it made me think about Dad gifts. I was reading in John 17 noted the first three verses: 

“After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.’”

What did God the father give to his son Jesus? What would the God of the universe give to the son who already has everything? These verses say it’s . . . us! You and me. The ones Jesus has made his own.

If you ever wonder about your own worth, you were the gift God gave to Jesus. And Jesus didn’t want you to use you or take advantage of you; he wanted you so he could bless you. Jesus wants us so he can have a relationship with us.

Why? I don’t really understand. It doesn’t have much to do with me, and it has everything to do with the amazing, wonderful God who made us and called us. He truly is love.