Thin Air, High Hope

Christmas, gifts, and the heart of God

This morning, as I was sitting in front of our Christmas tree with a hot cup of coffee, I started thinking about gifts.

I was thinking about all the effort we put into finding the right one. The way we watch and listen throughout the year, the mental notes we keep about what someone might enjoy. Most of the gifts we give probably won’t change someone’s life, or even last very long. And yet, we still love giving them. We love making someone else smile. There is something special about offering a gift simply because we want someone we love to experience something good, even if it’s frivolous or fleeting.

On the receiving side, I think part of what makes a good gift so meaningful is that it makes us feel seen. When someone gives us a gift that fits us, that reflects who we are or what we love, it communicates something deeper than the object itself. It says, “I’ve been paying attention. I see you.”

Jesus says in Matthew 7:11 that if we, as imperfect parents, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more eager is our Father in heaven to do the same. Something struck me while thinking about this statement. Jesus doesn’t say that we love giving our children their basic needs, though of course we do. He doesn’t say we love providing only what is necessary. He says we desire to give gifts, and so does God.

At Christmas, this is what we celebrate.

God gives a gift, and He gives it with great excitement. Angels sing. People travel great distances. The story is filled with anticipation and wonder. The gift is not efficient or practical. It is tenderly wrapped and comes as a small, helpless infant. And yet it is deeply personal and profoundly generous. It is given with intention, like the best gifts always are.

God doesn’t give us an abstract sign of care or a symbol to interpret from a distance. He gives us a person. And that person spends His life seeing people. Jesus sees those others overlook or misunderstand. He sees the bleeding woman hidden in the crowd. He sees the Samaritan woman, known more for her past than her person. He sees the blind beggar crying out by the road, the rich young ruler desperate for validation, and the Pharisee wrestling with his faith in the middle of the night. Again and again, Jesus notices. In giving us Jesus, God gives us a gift that quite literally sees us.

Gifts are meant to bring delight. They are meant to make us happy, even if that happiness is brief. And yet, somewhere along the way, many of us learned to be suspicious of happiness, especially in Christian spaces. We learned to qualify it, minimize it, or hold it at arm’s length. We learned to say things like, “God doesn’t care if we’re happy. He wants our obedience,” often with good intentions. The goal may be to protect against selfishness or shallow faith, and I understand that concern. Still, I sometimes wonder what this way of talking about happiness communicates about the heart of God.

Joy is often emphasized in place of happiness. In psychology, joy is typically understood as brief, while happiness is seen as more enduring. In Christian thought, the meaning is almost reversed. Joy is understood as having a depth and steadiness that happiness does not always carry. It can coexist with grief and suffering in ways happiness often cannot.

But happiness offers something different. It isn’t meant to replace joy or compete with it. Happiness is often momentary and responsive. And while it doesn’t sustain us in suffering the way joy can, it can reveal something tender about God’s heart toward us. It suggests not only that God is committed to our growth and endurance, but that He also takes pleasure in our delight.

This is where the idea of God as a gift-giver feels especially comforting.

For those who are grieving, depressed, or walking through long seasons of waiting, happiness can feel unreachable. Even the mention of it can carry a sense of shame, as though something is wrong for not feeling it. When happiness is treated as an expectation or a spiritual goal, that pressure can become suffocating.

What often matters more in those seasons is presence. There is something deeply meaningful about being near someone who is able to find delight in the world, whose light doesn’t erase the darkness but keeps it from swallowing everything. Their presence might not “fix” the pain, but it reminds us that we are not alone.

God offers that to us.

He doesn’t mandate happiness. Rather, He gives gifts. Sometimes they are big, but often they are small. Sometimes they are as simple as beauty, warmth, connection, or a moment of relief. None of these cancel suffering, and none of them pretend it isn’t there. They sit alongside it, communicating: You are seen. You are not alone.

Sitting in front of our tree this morning, I realized how excited I am to give my family their gifts this year. And if I, in all of my imperfection, feel such anticipation over giving these temporary objects to those I love, how much more does our Father in heaven delight in offering good gifts to His children.

He gives not because He has to, not because we have earned it, and not because the gift will erase all pain at once. He gives because love delights in giving. And unlike any gift we could ever offer, this gift carries with it the promise that all broken things will one day be made whole.

Wherever you find yourself with happiness this Christmas, whether it feels close, distant, or impossible, God still offers a gift, freely and with great excitement.

He gives the gift of His presence.

A gift that offers itself in love, saying what God has been saying all along:
I see you. You matter. You are not alone.