Our devotional thoughts are coming from Rebekah Hawk this week! If you stop by our contributors page, you can learn a bit about her.

“I’m just a little bit sad because Christmas is over,” my nine-year-old son mourned. 

“Aww, I hear you. What was everyone’s favorite gift?” I asked to distract him. I ask this question every year because it’s fun to think about what I cherish most once the gift bags and wrapping paper divulge their secrets. 

Sometimes, my favorite gift was something I specifically asked for. Other times, my favorite gift is something super practical that I know I will enjoy using extensively—isn’t adulthood funny? 

But most often, my favorite gift is something I didn’t even think to ask for—something that speaks to the core of who I am as a person—and celebrates me, despite how silly or insignificant the gift might seem to everyone else.  

Why do those gifts mean so much? Because giving a gift of individual significance requires intimate knowledge of exactly what will bring me joy. The person who gives me this special kind of gift knows me so well that he or she has stepped inside my mind, explored my heart, paid attention to little clues, anticipated my feelings, and made the time and effort to find something that creatively addresses an (often unexpressed) need or desire I have. 

Those gifts make me feel loved because I feel known and understood. 

And isn’t that what all humans desire? In our souls, we want to be known and understood because God created us for Himself. God created us from dust and gave mankind the best Gift we want and need—His presence—walking in the cool of the day with us. And when we destroyed that Gift with our disobedience, (as children often do with a shiny, new toy, not perceiving the value of the gift) He lovingly continued to give us Himself. 

He knew we needed to know more about His character, having been so deceived by the serpent in the Garden, that He gave us His Law. He knew we are forgetful, so He came down and tabernacled with His specially called out people who were supposed to welcome all foreigners willing to submit to His Law. He knows we are self-righteous, so He patiently showed us how idolatrous we are—how very incapable we are of keeping His Law. 

And in the fulness of time, He came down in skin and bones, kept His Own Law perfectly, and soaked the dust He created with His own blood to give us what He knew we desperately wanted and needed all along—His presence in our very hearts. He knows us so well, giving us faith to believe Him, His Spirit to seal us, and continued intercession for us as we wait for eternity with Him.

As we pack away the festive decorations, we anticipate what our Father will give us this year. His gifts will likely be unexpected, and maybe not what we would think to ask for, but they will be just the right gifts because He knows and loves us perfectly.