After

After

Before I go too far into this story, I need to explain that for most of my life I lived in areas where everyone had an incinerator in their backyard, in which they burned cardboard and paper trash. I often found myself standing before an incinerator after the opening of presents on Christmas Day, burning the boxes and wrapping paper that, only a short time before, had held the much-expected presents of the day.

During that chore, I would think of the unopened presents that had sat under the Christmas tree the day before—unopened packages that were a source of mystery, wonder, and expectation. Now the wrappings had come off and were being set on fire, turning into ashes before my eyes. Standing there, I would wonder whether the expectations that surrounded those gifts had been fulfilled once they were opened.

As my children were growing up, there was usually some disappointment that set in before the sun went down on Christmas Day. A toy or game that had been opened to squeals of joy either broke, or its batteries ran down, and it now sat idle—dashing expectations that had been sky-high just a few hours earlier.

Have you ever looked forward to a gift that, when finally in your hands, did not measure up to the expectations that filled your heart while it sat in a beautifully decorated box under the tree? How quickly the new wears off, and for most of us, we could not even tell you what we received for Christmas a year or two ago.

Someone has coined the phrase, “the gift that keeps on giving.” In the nearly seventy-five years of my life, there has been only one gift that has never disappointed me—the gift of God’s only begotten Son, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day.

In 1988, Philip Yancey wrote a book titled Disappointment with God. The book explored the reality that, at one time or another, we have all been disappointed with God because, in one way or another, He did not meet our expectations.

As I have grown in Christ, I have come to realize that God has never let me down—not once. Where I once thought He had, where I felt disappointed with His performance, I have since discovered that my disappointment was the result of unrealistic expectations of Him. I now see that His dealings with me have been one hundred percent consistent with His Word.

Don’t get me wrong—I have experienced my share of deep, dark valleys that seemed to insinuate that God had abandoned me. There have been places and times when, like the psalmist, I cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1), only later to confess, “I will tell of Your name to my brothers; in the midst of Your people I will praise You” (Psalm 22:22).

Now I can honestly say that I praise God for the valleys, for they have revealed more to me about God—and about myself—than the mountaintops ever have.

Therefore, I confess that I, too, have been disappointed by some of the gifts that I have opened on Christmas Day, but I have never been disappointed by the Child who was born on Christmas Day.