A Gift Proposed

How was your marriage proposal? Was it everything you had dreamed of: the perfect place, the perfect lighting, the perfect outfit, the perfect someone? The wedding proposal has become quite an important event in our society. A lot of weight is placed on how much planning goes into it, how much money is spent on it, if the right people are involved. Some feel the proposal is the event that demonstrates the measure of a man’s affections. When my husband proposed to me, I wasn’t sure what he was asking at first. We were in a church full of people I didn’t know in a town I had no connection with in the middle of a blizzard. He didn’t prepare a speech or get down on one knee. It was not what I had expected. If I had based my decision to marry him on his performance in that event, we wouldn’t have gotten married. Thank God the proposal event was not what my husband was offering me.

We have all heard the expression “don’t judge a book by its cover”. This sage advice implores us to look beyond the packaging at what is actually being offered. Once the pretty gift-wrap is removed, you are left with what the giver really intended for you to keep. Big events can be seen the same way; once the proposal is over, once the wedding is done, you are left with the actual contents of the gift you were offered. The events that lead to my marriage might not have been all that shiny, but the gift of a life spent in intimacy and friendship with my husband was what I was really receiving as a result of those events.

This morning’s devotion in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers reminded me how often we look to God for experiences rather than at the gift that God is offering. Oswald points out that we view salvation as an experience rather the great thought of God toward us, the gift of His love wrapped in the event of Christ on the cross.

If we judge this gift based on esthetics, we probably won’t be very interested in accepting it. God doesn’t usually propose when we are looking our best or feeling ready for a commitment. He comes to us when we are broken, downcast, fallen from grace. He proposes by showing the great distance between our poverty and His majesty. He offers us His all in the face of our complete lack, casting off His glory and choosing a life of suffering and ostracization to be united with us for eternity. This is not the fairytale proposal we expect. This is not the beauty and comfort we dream of when we imagine what life with God should be like. And yet within this packaging is the most divine, most precious gift anyone could hope to possess. It is the very heart of God in humble wrappings. May we stop looking for the gilded gift-wrap of spiritual experiences and instead receive the unfathomable gift of God’s love.