This Strange Gift Wrap

This popular devotion originally appeared on audreyfrank.org in February 2021.

Take delight in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

It came in strange gift wrap, not at all what I expected. But the gift was right there inside. I turned it over in my hands, joyously held it to my heart, and wondered at the mad methods of my Lover.

It is exactly what I asked for, really.

The wishing began slowly, like a tingling thrill that rises up quietly from the deep spaces of our souls, growing in intensity as it climbs, until it bursts out all over us, covering us in hope.

I wanted a life change. I asked Him to rearrange me on the inside, to remove me from me and fill me with all of Him.

A crazy, wishful, impossible girl-wish, it was. We all know we can never fully get the us out of us.

Any fool knows that we are too full of us to let Him fill us up with all of Himself. There will always be a little nook or cranny where we hide a bit of self for a rainy day when being spiritual doesn’t suit our whimsy.

But I did wish it. I did. I outright begged for it on my knees, my face, even, with real tears.

All of You and none of me. Please, God!

It was the only hope I had to change the world. Because any change I wrought in my own strength was sure to fade and fail eventually, not made of strong enough stuff to last.

And I was born to change the world.

At least that is what I’ve always wanted to do.

I know it in my bones. I’ve known it since I was nine years old when the man from Africa showed his slides and stole my heart away.

So about my wish. I wished it, I asked for it, I begged for it.

The first box arrived the very night I fell on my face in tears begging for it, scrawling the words in my journal before a room full of witnesses. Our small prayer meeting that night was specially anointed and we were all in awe of Jesus’ gentle, powerful presence in our midst. I’d say my heart cry was not the only one that rose pure and holy that night.

I got home a short time later to my house full of firefighters, my son and husband racing through the darkness to a hospital, and my boy fighting for his life.

The gift was not obvious. Its wrapping looked like terror. It crinkled like snapping flames. It was thick and black. I didn’t know a gift was hidden inside this strange and terrible wrapping.

But over the coming nights and endless days that turned into weeks and months, the tape started to come loose. The wrapping started to fall away, and I stopped my sobbing and took a closer look.

It was filled with little boxes of treasure, all with my name on them.

The first box held Trust. It was heavy, like lead, and I had to summon the courage to open it.

I carefully peeled back the ugly paper holding the next one. 

Presence. This one had a lovely fragrance like perfume and made me feel calm.

The next was lumpy and stuffed so tight the edges were straining. 

It held Provision.

A small box that tinkled when I shook it was full of gold trinkets encrusted with gems. It was labeled Promises.

Under everything, its fleecy thickness carefully folded and cushioning the rest, was Hope.

In the years since more gifts have continued to arrive. I have come to expect the strange gift wrap. In fact, now when I see a package arrive wrapped in strange paper like Disappointment, Delays, Changed Plans, or Unexpected Bad News, my heart leaps with expectation. Is it from Him? Is it exactly what I’ve been asking for? That clever Lover of mine.

When I was a child, not long after the day my nine-year-old heart was stolen by a longing to change the world, I came across Psalm 37:4. 

Take delight in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

I thought then that if I loved and served the Lord with all my heart, He would give me anything I desired. He would make everything okay. So I set to doing it.

As I grew into adulthood my childish interpretation became clear. 

He doesn’t give us whatever we want. He gives us the right wanting in the first place—the very desiring. Our wishes become His own wishes for us, for He knows best what we need.

I need all of Him to change the world. For He is the Savior of the world, not I. I don’t need a trouble-free life and perfect health to be His vessel. I need Him.

Have you received gifts from God in strange gift wrap? #hope Share on X

Are they still sitting cast to the side, piled up in a corner of your life, unopened? Or have you, like me, come to expect something exquisite hidden inside the most unexpected packages?

Personally, I sure wish God would wrap my gifts in pretty paper. I love pretty gift wrap. And sometimes, He does. 

But the greatest treasures in my life have come in strange wrapping I never would have chosen.

Take courage, my friend. Open what He has given today and see what treasures hide inside. You might be surprised to find exactly what your heart wished for all along.

Lord, give me courage to open the gifts you send in strange wrapping. Amen.

@audreycfrank

Photo by Leone Venter on Unsplash