Can you remember some of your favorite Christmas gifts you’ve received? I’ve been thinking about some of mine when I was growing up. When I was really young, it was my Cabbage Patch Kids. One year I got a real cash register. As I got older I would receive more useful or practical gifts…a bike, a new tennis racket, clothes. For the most part, whatever was on my Christmas list, I likely received it.

Then there are the things, both big and small, that I’ve asked God for. Often times it was hard for me to see where God was in all of it. But now that I‘m so far removed from certain situations, I can see how the times I didn’t get what I wanted was because of what it would've done to me. Most of the time, the things I would ask God for were only a temporary fix to a deep-seated problem. And He wanted to get to the root of the problem.

So instead He gave me His incredible mercy…a gift so big I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around it or accurately describe what it’s done for my life. Forgiveness. Self-control. Just to name a few. Unlike so many things we get that may quickly loose their luster, a relationship with Jesus means these things will never go away.

God says that He withholds no good thing from us. And so we can be sure that whatever he does or does not give us is for our own good. I still can't believe how much simpler and peaceful my life got when I understood this to be true.

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. James 1:17