Did You Read the Card? by Jack Radcliffe

Did You Read the Card?
Jack Radcliffe
3/1/2013
Going home is always an adventure. This past Christmas vacation offered the opportunity for my family to go home and be with other family whom we don’t get to see often. The normal nine-hour drive became twelve due to a snowstorm and hourly stops to walk our new puppy. These diversions were just the interruptions needed for us to slow life down, pay attention, and listen.

In our youth, many of us work hard at chasing our dreams wherever they may take us, leaving behind not just where we grew up but also the values and principles given to us. How could there possibly be anything there for us anymore? It’s not exciting, new, or fresh enough; the life we want to put in the rearview mirror is too simple, too limiting. There is something more out there for us.

A mantra of our time is Don’t look back; move forward. There is some truth to that. We can’t live in the past. However, the past is valuable. Reaching back every now and then can reconnect us with what is important and the values that have shaped us.

One of those life-shaping principles I learned from greeting cards. On every holiday and special occasion, my parents would give my brother and me cards with money in them. Imagine my excitement as a young boy, seeing cash when unfolding the card, which was quickly discarded. Those first few times, my mother would ask, “Did you read the card?”

Read the card? Wasn’t it simply a container for the gift—the money? No. It was so much more. My mother would take time to find cards that said exactly what she wanted to tell us from her heart. If she couldn’t find one, she would write notes to us. At first I was so excited about the money that I almost missed what was written on the card. I almost missed knowing what was really important.

Money and gifts get our attention. They also get spent and used up. The message on the card remains.

God is the ultimate gift giver. We are drawn to the promise of his gifts and to the gifts themselves. They often become more important to us than what God has written in the book that holds the message from his heart. We often look to his gifts to sustain our faith. They were never meant for that.

First Corinthians 13:1-13 addresses this. It reveals what is most important: the heart of God, who is love. It tells us that without love, God’s most amazing gifts mean nothing. Maybe the reason so many of us fall in and out of faith is that we are more enamored of the gifts than the Giver. Real faith takes root when the message of the gospel of love, written by the Giver, captures our hearts.

If you’re finding faith difficult to grasp, look to the Giver and his message. May it capture your heart.