"Long Walk Part of Gift"
A young boy once came up to a missionary and said, “I love you and I want you to have this.” He pulled from a straw basket the most beautiful shell the missionary had ever seen. As she admired its beauty, she recognized it as a special shell only found on the far side of the island, a half day’s walk from the village. When she asked the boy about this, he smiled and said, “Long walk part of gift.” Crucial to everything we believe as Christians is this truth... that God loved the world so much that he made that long walk to come from where He is to where we are. When it was impossible for us to reach out to Him, He reached out to us.
Apart from the Incarnation, we would never fully know the depths to which we are loved or the lengths to which God can be trusted. Because God gave the gift of His Son at Christmas we should give good gifts and we should also give God gifts. The gift of Jesus is profound.
From a sermon by Brian Bill, Give More, 12/13/2009