DUDLEY HALL — I have a confession to make: I really like all the hoopla that’s associated with Christmas. I know I should be offended by all the commercialism, materialism, secularism and waste, but I love watching people running around buying things to give away. Oh, I can remember as a child not being so concerned about giving. I was focused on what I would get for Christmas. My parents seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as I, even though they didn’t get much. They knew something I hadn’t figured out quite yet.

While I am confessing, I’ll go ahead and admit that this year I enjoyed the Halloween festivities with our grandchildren. I know: Halloween is a mixture of celebrating death and darkness and some foolish superstitions along with harvest festivals, so some will surely conclude that I have crossed over the dark line to cultural accommodation bordering on demon worship. I don’t see it that way. There’s giving at Halloween, too.

I loved watching all the kids dressed up in Star Wars costumes going around with big baskets of cheap candy. Most all the neighbors seem to really enjoy giving away the treats. Sam and Ben (ages 5 and 3) got back early from their trip around the neighborhood with their baskets full. The doorbell at their home (where I spent that evening with them) was still ringing. They began to give their candy away to the late trick or treaters. They told their mom that was what they enjoyed the most about the whole night.

What is it that makes giving so fun? Giving is the nature of our Creator. Creation is a gift. God didn’t owe anyone anything. He created all things and gave humans the privilege of being His representatives on earth. After Adam and Eve sinned, He gave them skins to cover their shame. He gave Noah the plans for an ark. He gave Abram promise of a descendant who would restore the earth. He gave Israel a covenant that would make them His nation. He gave them a king. He gave them promises of full and final redemption. And then he gave his own Son.

We humans are recipients of the very breath of God, so like Him we all are imprinted with a desire to give. We can’t represent God properly if we don’t delight in giving. Sin intruded into the lives of God’s creation, interfering with this delight. It introduced fear of not having enough for ourselves. We hoard, steal and even murder, hoping to get what it will take to make us secure. The deceitfulness of sin perverts even the giving drive: some give to get more.

Selfishness smothers God’s designed desire for us to love giving, yet it can’t take it away completely. We can — and do — still find giving to be more satisfyingly joyful than getting. If all this sounds a bit mixed up, it is, because we humans are mixed up. We’re God’s creatures in God’s image, so there’s a lot right about us, but sin has made a lot wrong, too. Christmas is mixed up, and Halloween is mixed up, because we’re mixed up, too.

God gave again. In giving his Son, he opened the way for humans to be born again of the imperishable seed of his word. Those who put their faith in Jesus receive the very life of God — his spiritual DNA, if you will. His Spirit liberates the giving urge from the inner prison of fear and greed. Those who know the nature of their Father discover that they have been born of his Spirit and their greatest delight is found in giving. They find that God so delights in giving that he will channel his abundance through his representatives on earth when they live to give. Learning and living in the truth, they begin to get less confused about life and giving.

While we celebrate the greatest gift ever this Christmas, let’s also enjoy giving ourselves. Let’s not allow our mixed-up world and the commercialism of our culture rob us of such a pleasure. We may not have great financial resources, but the giving heart finds a way to give. We have something that will refresh another and put a smile on their face. It touches something at the core of our being. We have been born (and born again) as givers.

Not only that, but we can keep it up all year. Why limit such joy to the holidays?