Will You Foregift Me?

“Thwack!” The mechanical pencil hurled  from Liam’s* hand smacked against the wall, chillingly close to where I sat.

The end of the day had spiraled out of control for this young man. It all began with a simple request that he take a sharp object out of his mouth. From here, a series of events were set in motion—blowing up like the kinetic energy of a crazy domino setup. Unlike dominoes, though, this explosion wasn’t well planned, and it certainly wasn’t expected.

This was the same little boy that I fed that very morning when he arrived to school late. The same lad whose forehead I checked for a fever when he complained of a headache. And the same student that I had given daily specialized instructions.

On that day, none of that mattered.

He ran from me. He cursed me. He called me a liar. And of course, there was the pencil that found itself smashed against the wall next to my desk. A reasonable request ended with an unreasonable (and quite violent) reaction. And a sad, empty silence spread like a chasm between us, when his tantrum was finally over.

With my adrenaline pumping and emotions surging, I left school feeling confused and defeated. Yet I knew that I had to remain firm and resolute, loving Liam like Christ loves me. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what tomorrow would bring.

Early the next morning, as I had requested, Liam returned to class with an apology note in hand. Folded and jammed into his pocket, written in his best preadolescent penmanship, were two sentences that owned what he had done and closed in this way, “Will you foregift me?”

A smile came across my face, not only because of the sweetness of his misspelled sentiment, but also because he understood the gravity of his offense. Yet, more than this I smiled because God spoke to me of my own need for fore-gifted forgiveness through the serendipitous nature of a child’s words.

Forgiving.

Fore-gifting.

Though Liam had unwittingly substituted one word for the other, I began to wonder if my wayward student’s words to me were more than a boyish mistake. Perhaps he intuitively knew and accepted with greater faith than I that forgiveness flows from fore-gifting. Indeed, this was a lesson for me to grow in  amazement at God’s fore-gifting grace.

Was it not true that I had determined long before the note was written and delivered that I would forgive Liam? And, in truth, had I not been willing and even desirous that our relationship be set right, all his entreaties for forgiveness would have amounted to nothing. Liam needed to be forgiven, and his need to be forgiven was dependent upon my predetermined decision to forgive… to fore-gift. Liam knew me well enough to trust that my inclination toward him was good, and my intent was restoration. If this is true for a sinful woman like me, how much more of God?

Indeed, we who are in Christ have been fore-gifted! God’s Word says we were predestined before the foundation of the world to be forgiven, adopted, and sanctified. While we were yet dead in our trespasses and sins, long before we could whisper even the weakest plea, “Forgive me,” God, in his tender mercy, set us apart – fore-gifted us – that we might be made holy and blameless before him. Ephesians 1 and 2 tell us this was his intent all along.

This is a mystery that used to stop me short. My finite mind could not – no, cannot – fully comprehend the way in which God, in Christ, forgives. Yet, in God’s fore-gifting grace, I am calmed. I am reassured. It is God’s work, not mine, and I can rest knowing he has blessed, he has gifted, he has predestined, he has adopted, he has redeemed. He has forgiven. God has done all this from time before time with intentionality, and we who are in Christ are the recipients of this his “fore-giftness”.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Ephesians 1: 3-10

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*a composite student with a fictitious name