A created thing is an expression of its creator

This Christmas I was blessed with the gift of coming home from Athens to surprise my family. Their joy at having me here and my joy at being here with them is making me think once again about how much our presence is a gift to the world and the people in our lives.

I think of a few of the people whose presence in my life has profoundly affected me: my mom, who quit her job to stay at home to raise my siblings and me, giving us herself and a foundation in love. My friends, who give themselves to me by taking time to listen to, laugh with and love me. God, who gave himself to us as Jesus, a baby who would grow into a man whose presence on the earth transforms all of human history. It's showing up that matters.

Two words I heard a speaker say once continue to echo in my mind: be interruptible. With our time, with our plans, with our lives; it's when we let others in when it might not be so convenient, when we share our presence, that beautiful things happen.

A lot of times, especially at Christmas when we're thinking about the God of the universe coming to the earth, we focus on how lowly and unworthy for God we and this earth are. While it is full of wonder to think about this, what we forget is that God made it all, imagined and designed and created it, that his creation is good and something to wonder at.

I imagine an artist working meticulously, for hours, days, years at easel, behind camera, at piano, working tirelessly to express the truth they feel inside them that they want to share with the world. They work until they feel they've captured, understood, created what they want to say, and then they let it go, share it, to bring to the world truth, joy, themselves.

A created thing is an expression of its creator. Whenever its creator sets it loose in the world, that usually means it's something they're proud of, something they find worthy of expressing who they are to the world; a worthy expression. We are loose in this world; we are worthy expressions. Our Creator set us free to tell the world about him with our presence.

Ephesians 4:6 (NAB): "Blessed be the one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." The God of everything is through all of us, in all of us. There's no getting around it.

Our God came to earth as a baby to show us how the simple gift of presence can transform the world. Our presence is the greatest gift we can give, because we can't give anything more than ourselves. We sometimes feel as if we need to be more, give more, do more. That's why ourselves, holding nothing, is the most humble gift. Holding nothing, we have nothing to compensate for what we think we lack; we offer ourselves, saying we believe we are enough. That is vulnerable, that is beautiful, that is the greatest gift.