Undeserved Gifts

I’ve been emerging from a long, dark time in my personal life into the light of a new life, a fresh start. Even though I am struggling with some things, and working through a lot of old pain, for the first time in my adult life, I am genuinely happy as a whole person… and I’m having a difficult time coming to terms with that happiness.

The fact is that I don’t deserve this happiness. I don’t deserve any of these gifts that God has given me.

My marriage was a failure; it was broken in very serious ways and I wasn’t strong enough to fix it or continue in it. I can run through a lot of if-onlys: if I had been stronger, if I’d made better choices years ago, if I weren’t vulnerable in the particular ways that I am, if, if, if… But I wasn’t strong enough. I gave everything I had to make it work, and I couldn’t do it. It about killed me. It was the grace of God (quite literally) that got me through it and out the other side.

What I didn’t expect was that when He gave me a new life, it would be so full of good things. I am safe and healing at last – but that’s not all. I have friends who love me, a wonderful church family, a fulfilling job, a sport that brings me great joy. I am not afraid or lonely any more. I even live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I can honestly say “Thank You!” to God every single day.

I don’t even remotely deserve any of this.

How can I come through an experience of total failure in my personal life, and be given not just a chance at a fresh start, but a life filled with more blessings than I can count? Isn’t that something you’re supposed to earn as a result of getting living your life right, not as a result of completely screwing up your life beyond your own ability to set it straight?

My pride keeps looking for some way to say that I do deserve this new life. I’m smart, gifted at teaching, well-educated, and hardworking – surely that counts for something, right? But those are all things that He has given me… and though I had all those gifts before I knew Him, I still managed to make a total mess of my life. Is it because I’m a good person? Not a chance. If I managed to live what looked on the outside like an “upright” life before I met God, it was because He was gracious enough to protect me from the worst of what I could have gotten myself into. Now that I am a Christian, I recognize with dismay the sin in my own heart, and see how far I fall short, every day, of living up to His standards.

No, it’s abundantly clear that I do not deserve any of the good things I have been given. But oddly enough, that realization has made me feel, not depressed like I might have imagined, but deeply relieved… deeply free.

My birthday is next week – maybe that’s what has helped me put some of the pieces together. Unlike a prize or a payment, a birthday present is fundamentally undeserved. My birthday happens on the same day each year no matter what I do! Birthdays are not just undeserved as gift-giving occasions, but also non-reciprocal. The only thing I can do, on receiving a generous present, is to say thanks and show appreciation by using and enjoying the gift. Furthermore, the quality of any gift I receive has nothing to do with my own merits. The better the gift, the more it reflects positively on the kindness and thoughtfulness of the giver.

God knows I don’t deserve His gifts. He knew that when He gave them to me. They are gifts from His loving kindness and grace, not from my achievements.

Now, I know that the particular material details of my peace and happiness are transient. It may be that He will call me to give up my pleasant home and fulfilling job in order to do some other work that He has planned for me to do. Though there’s so much I don’t understand about the way that He works in our lives, I need to trust that, while the material circumstances of my life may change, the fact that I am happy and productive and safe is His gift to me, and He will not take it back. If He calls me to something different, He will also help me find joy in obeying Him in whatever work He has for me.

If I try to think about my new life with my old habits of thinking, none of it makes sense. The only thing that makes this totally new life comprehensible is a completely new way of thinking – one that puts God at the center, not myself. When I manage that, at least for a moment, I get a glimpse of how things fit together.

I don’t deserve any of these good things in my life. What does that mean?

It means that God’s love is beyond anything I can even imagine. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 56:8-9). No kidding.

It means I don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have to keep a low profile in fear that He will someday notice my undeserved happiness and take it away from me. He already knows that I don’t deserve it, and has given it to me anyway.

It means I don’t have to feel guilty for being happy, because He wants me to delight in the good gifts that He has given me.

It means that I have committed to living my new life for Him. Even though the responsibility terrifies me, even though I feel completely inadequate to the task, even though I know I’ll fail and have to get up and try again, I’m committed to using these gifts to the fullest in His service, asking for His help to do it.

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