One particular Christmas when I was about ten years old, I had my heart set on getting a camera. It was one of those cameras where you bought flash cubes to click into place on top of the camera and filled it with a C-110 film cartridge. No batteries were necessary, because nobody’s camera took batteries back then. Everybody’s was manual. You would stick your film cartridge in, close the door, and wind it up. If you needed a flash, you would stick the flash cube (some had flash bars) into a spot on top of the camera. If you didn’t want a flash, you left the flash cube off.
I wanted a camera so badly that I made sure Mom knew all about it. I wanted there to be no mistaking the fact that I wanted this camera. I just knew she would get it for me if she knew how badly I wanted it. So I told her—plenty of times, I’m sure—and then waited for Christmas to arrive.
Christmas morning finally came, and we sat around the Christmas tree in my grandparents’ living room, opening Christmas presents. I had opened all but one, and still, no camera.
It must be in the last box, I reasoned. It had to be. I had to have that camera.
I unwrapped the last box and beheld the back of a package. It said “MagiCubes.”
At the time, I didn’t know that that’s what the flash cubes were called. All I knew was that I had opened the very last package, and instead of the coveted camera, Mom had gotten me something called MagiCubes, which I didn’t even know what it was.
I still remember that moment of shock when I realized that I hadn’t gotten a camera. There was a numb disbelief as I mechanically turned the package over and pulled some more of the wrapping paper off.
Then, I saw the camera.
Relief and joy flooded my heart. I had gotten my camera! Mom hadn’t disappointed me after all!
It’s okay to be ecstatic over a Christmas gift. But here’s the point: that camera was not the only gift I received that Christmas. I had gotten many other nice things, chosen for me with love. Yet when I opened that last package and thought I hadn’t gotten the one thing I really wanted, all those other gifts didn’t matter to me.
Yes, I appreciated them. Yes, I was thankful for them. But the abundance I already had still wasn’t enough to keep me from being devastated over what I thought I hadn’t gotten.
I’m sorry to say that I’ve reacted the same way in regard to gifts from God. I suspect that you have, too.
Most of us have plenty of material things. Even if we don’t have as much as our neighbors, we have plenty. Yet often, we spend more of our time and emotional energy focusing on what we don’t have than on what we do have.
Do we sometimes get so obsessed with what we want that we won’t appreciate anything else? Do we decide that anything different from what we want is lesser? Do we take for granted the myriad blessings God has poured out upon us, both spiritually and materially, and focus on the one thing we haven’t gotten that we want?
What is it that you want today?
Maybe it’s a house in a better neighborhood. Maybe you want your children to behave better. Maybe you want applause or recognition.
What if you never get it? What if, in His infinite wisdom, God decides not to give it to you? What then?
Will you look around at what you have, and say, “I already have so much more than I deserve. It’s okay if I never get (whatever your desire is)”? Or will you not even bother looking around at what you have, because what you have doesn’t mean much compared to the absence of what you want?
Maybe you—maybe I—need to start thanking God for what you do have instead of wishing for what we don’t.
Philippians 4:11-12—I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.