We’ve all had the experience.  We are opening the present that has been carefully wrapped and presented.  We smile as we anticipate the gift, wondering what it might be.  The one who gave the gift stands there smiling, anxious to share our joy when we see it.  And then, wrapping torn off and box opened, we see the gift and are stopped cold.  It is something we never have wanted and don’t want now and we wonder how this person could have ever dreamed we’d like this.

Our smile is now frozen on our faces and our minds race frantically.  Every second that we delay response is a clue to our shock and dismay and we are desperate not to offend the giver.  We urgently need to think of a gracious way to say thank you that doesn’t sound artificial or forced as we try to artificially force it from our lips.  (Pause for a question.  Is it OK for a Christian to lie in such a circumstance?  Or is it OK to say “This gift is horrible and I hate it”?  What ways do you reply in such instances?)

However, most of us manage, with varying degrees of skill and guilt feelings to stumble through the situation.  Once we are alone we turn to the core question.  What am I going to do with this?  Re-gifting comes to mind.  Maybe we can give this to someone else.  Studies show that over half of Americans now re-gift.  Humorous stories, and horror stories, of re-gifting results abound.  You can find “re-gifting rules” with an internet search.

I will leave it to you to decide if and when re-gifting is acceptable.  If you’d like to post your thoughts on this go ahead and do so.  But here is good news.  Grace can be, should be, and is meant to be, re-gifted.  We are saved by grace and then can freely re-gift that message to those who are in need.  You know the Lord today because someone re-gifted to you the message of God’s grace.  And others come to know salvation, indeed only come to know it, when we re-gift the message.

But also, our lives can be touched by the grace of another and it can then be our joy to re-gift a gracious act to someone else.  Just think for a minute what a world we might have if grace re-gifting becomes the norm for believers; if we recall acts of grace we have received and set our hearts to re-gift them to others.  Frankly, as we become grace re-gifters we often open the door for us to re-gift the greatest gift of all – the message of God’s love.  So go ahead.  Be a grace re-gifter today.