On the one hand, we crave to be loved and yet something in us hates to be loved with no strings attached. I have a Korean friend who is over-the-top generous towards me. She lives in another state, and I see her once or twice a year; it never fails that, for no reason at all, she sends me back home laden with goodies! One time when I was with her, she insisted that we visit a Korean grocery store and she took me down all of the aisles and pulled off the shelves 2 or 3 of each item that she was sure I needed or wanted and filled up the grocery cart.
The whole time that she was doing this, I was thinking about frugality and how much she was spending and racking my brain to know how I could "pay her back" for this generosity. It made me very uncomfortable!
Later as I was complaining in my heart about all of this, the Lord spoke to me something to this effect: "Nita, I want to show you extravagant, no-strings-attached love through her undeserved generosity towards you. Receive it with thanks...and then you do the same towards others." I'm slowly getting it but I'm not yet there, because each time I see her and she loads me up with good things, I cringe a little inside; I want to deserve the gifts or have some way to pay her back! It's very humbling to receive with no way of paying back.
So deeply ingrained in us is the idea of pay-back or "evening the scales" that we, the human race, couldn't tolerate perfect unadulterated love when it showed up in Jesus. In this season now of gift-giving and receiving, it's not easy to receive a gift from someone that you didn't give to; even if the giver had no strings attached to the gift, our inner drive is often to feel like they expect something back or that we should give something back. This may be a good time to pause and remember the extravagant, no-strings-attached Love of God in Jesus and by His grace, humbly and gratefully receive the gift...and then give to others in the same way.
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