Unexpected Gifts

By Dan Miles

The energetic ball of fur scampers along the floor. He rediscovered his cat toy, a ball with a bell inside. He bats it and chases after it. Then, capturing it with his paw, he picks it up with his teeth and parades his conquest around the room. I smile at his antics and reflect on the unexpected blessing this kitten has been.

For the last seventeen years we have had at least one dog in our home. They have brought us companionship and unconditional love. Jack was my walking companion and Pippin was Nancy’s lap warmer. We didn’t know how emotional our attachment to them until this month we had to put the one then the other down. We miss them.

But one day late summer at 3:00 in the morning, there was a cry at our door. I looked and saw a tiny tan and white paw disappear under a table on our front porch. Nancy searched and found nothing. Later we heard the plaintive cry from the brush in back of our house. After a couple of hours and the help of our grandchildren, Elijah, a six-week-old kitten came to live with us.

Ever since, he’s been growing and making us know we belong to him not vice versa. He races around the house, knocking knick-knacks off shelves, chasing his tail, and bouncing off the wall in the front hallway.  His exploits lift our hearts.

We had no idea the day we took our kitten in that within two months both of our canine friends would be gone. While nothing can take the place of the pet you lose, Elijah has filled a void in our hearts. He makes us laugh. He’s taken Pippin’s place in Nancy’s lap. I’m looking forward to getting a harness and leash so I can take him on walks. (Don’t laugh. Walking cats is a real thing. I googled it.)

We didn’t expect Elijah. I am not a cat person, but we have enjoyed his presence. He is indeed an unexpected and unlooked for blessing, and not what we would have chosen, but exactly what we needed. But there is an unexpected and unlooked for gift God gave to us two thousand years ago.

He sent His Son to live among men. Philippians tells us He came as a servant humbling Himself, submitting to the Cross. There the God of Creation gave His life bearing the world’s sin upon his shoulders. Unexpected–He was born in a stable because there was no room for Him in the inn. Unlooked for–He was rejected by His own people and turned over to Roman executioners. But this Gift is exactly what we needed. Through this Gift God removes the sting of our disobedience–our sin–and gives us eternal life.

John 3 tells the story. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to Jesus in secret at night. Jesus wasted no time in telling him his need. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In other words, men are fatally flawed. We need a do over-a new start-a new creation. These earthly bodies are doomed to die, but there is hope.

Jesus went on to remind Nicodemus of a time in the wilderness. God’s people had rebelled and had received a plague of snakes as a result. God told Moses to erect a brass serpent on a pole. Anyone who would look to God’s provision on that pole would be healed from the bite of the serpents and live. Those who did not accept God’s provision died.  And so Jesus said to Nicodemus, (John 3:14-15) “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

All men are the same. We have been bitten by the lie of the serpent, who in the Garden offered our first parents the ability to be their own gods (Genesis 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.) They took him up on his offer and each of us has been seeking our own will over God’s ever since. That is sin and that leads to death (Romans 6:23).

This is why Jesus said we need to be born again — anew, from above and God made this possible when He sent His Son. John 3:16-17 explains it clearly:  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

This is God’s greatest gift to us-–unexpected and unlooked for. God sends us this gift but only when we receive it does it do us good. “But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).

A friend once told me that if he ever had a child that had gone astray, he’d always have his arms open wide to receive her back. My friend doesn’t understand it but that’s exactly the position God is in. Men are lost in sin heading for an eternity without Him, but in His love, God made a way. We receive His gift when we open our hearts and invite Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.