My Christmas Gift

It is Christmas time.  The time of gift giving and remembering the greatest gift ever given.  God gave me a gift yesterday.  A simple gift.  An answered request to delight His child.  

Yes, a gift just because it made me happy and glorified Him in the giving.  After all, God is the one who said, "it is more blessed to give than to receive". (Acts 20:35)  So, it only seems right that he was more delighted than I.

What makes it even greater is...I had been pondering life and lamenting my propensity to stumble in my spiritual life.  I had just read about David and how, even though he stumbled at times, he was still a man after God's own heart.  Isaiah 40:30-31 came to mind, encouraging me that God looks at the heart, not the perfection of our steps, and that it is He who will strengthen me.

We have a pair of bald eagles that frequent our lake and now, it seems, they have an off spring.  In all the times we have seen them perched high in the trees, we have never seen them hunt.  So, the other day I said to God that I would love to see them swoop down on the lake.  Yesterday, right after my pondering, they did just that.

We watched as the pair flew in pursuit of a duck.  The dusk narrowly escaping, as it dove underneath the surface.  We then watched the scene replay over and over, as one eagle kept trying.  We never did see the eagle succeed, but its mate was seen eating something at the other end of the lake.

Who am I that God would give me such a gift?  O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 (NASB)

The Lord’s Glory and Man’s Dignity.

8 O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,

To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

4 What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

5 Yet You have made him a little lower than God,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

7 All sheep and oxen,

And also the beasts of the field,

8 The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth!