The First and Second Gifts

One of the movies that had a profound effect on my adolescence was They Live by John Carpenter. It’s a SciFi thriller about a world that’s been subjugated by aliens without even knowing it. The main character (played by Roddy Piper) stumbles onto the truth, and with a special pair of sunglasses, he can see the subliminal messages being broadcast as well as the aliens themselves.

The movie stuck with me, and made me wonder about the nature of reality. Have we been fooled into thinking that this is all there is? Is there some insidious plan to keep us docile and helpless, like the virtual reality in The Matrix?

Even today, there are scientists who postulate that it might be possible that all of reality is simply an illusion, a hologram that we accept as reality, but has no real substance.

While I don’t believe that reality is a conspiracy to control us, I do believe there are deeper truths underneath the surface of the world we inhabit. The difference, to me, is in the motivation behind this construct.

What if the Universe, and everything in it, had a purpose for existing?

What if that purpose hid a second, deeper purpose that built upon the first, but didn’t diminish it?

That’s what I call the first and second gifts.

The first gift is the physical world and everything in it. Our reality in which we are born, live, and die, relate with one another, learn, grow, love, hate, build, destroy, laugh, and cry.

Consider this reality as a single gift. Consider it from the secular humanist’s perspective.

There is no afterlife, there is no god. All that exists is real, physical, measurable, tangible.

Life is a gift, given to us with no strings attached. We didn’t ask for or deserve it.

We can do with our lives whatever we want. We can pursue any ideology or agenda we can dream up. There are no rules other than the laws of physics.

The first gift, our birthright from God, is a world in which we might simply be.

We can choose to accept only the first gift.

But when we examine the first gift, like the protagonist in They Live, you might start to see some patterns. Odd behavior. Random coincidences. The feeling that something else is underneath the surface of this reality.

This is the second gift.

The second gift, unlike the first, is not forced upon us. You had no choice in whether to be born. The first gift is given universally.

The second gift is available to all, hidden in plain sight. It is always within our grasp, yet never fully revealed.

At least, not yet.

The second gift is the realization that the first gift means so much more than we ever thought possible.

Our lives, when seen through the lens of the second gift, like the sunglasses in They Live, let us see beyond the surface, into the deeper truths that our experiences represent.

We do this all the time, and perhaps we don’t even realize it.

Think about the language we use to describe the intangible aspects of faith and God.

We use anthropomorphic language to describe God.

We use physical language to describe what we can only imagine.

How do you think about God?

Is he your fortress? Your mighty tower? Your refuge? Your mountain? Your Father? Your helper?

All of these concepts are the first gift. You are given context to assign meaning to these objects based on your experience within the first gift. Without the first gift, would we even appreciate the second gift? Would we understand it at all?

But we must never make the mistake of limiting the value of the first gift to the context of the second gift.

Jesus, when he was teaching about prayer, said:

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

I think this is the first gift. When we settle for what the physical world has to offer us, we miss out on the fullness of the second gift.

But it is still a reward.

Jesus said they were rewarded. The hypocrites who prayed loudly for others were rewarded in the first gift. The physical world allowed them to experience the praise and adulation of those around them. God did not prevent this reward, even though it didn’t align with His greater gift.

Jesus came to show us the second gift, but He didn’t take away the first.

Did you ever get batteries for a Christmas present? Then you opened your next gift and you understood why. The first gift gives the second gift life.

Open your eyes to the beauty of the first gift.

Drink in every moment.

Allow the experience to shape you.

Because without the first gift, we’re incapable of appreciating the second.