Duck is Cover.

Jun 12

Scripture

By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Through faith, he was commended as righteous when God approved of his gifts. And through faith he still speaks, although he is dead.

Hebrews 11:4

Part I: Duck is Cover.

When we were kids, my dad loved ducks. The evidence was all around his bedroom. He had an extensive collection of nearly exclusively mallards of all sizes stacked on shelves, lined up along mantels, on top of every available surface space: stuffed ducks, solid ducks, hand-painted ducks, dried-out-Playdoh ducks, duck statues, duck mugs and duck bowls. Ducks. Ducks. Ducks.

And, as kids, we piled on. Mostly really, because it was a great gift option whenever the occasion for gift giving came around. One, because I knew it was something he liked. Clearly. And two, it completely absolved me of the uncertainty-insecurity-guessing game required to not just effectively but qualitatively check my dad off the gift list, every year.

I remember one time making him a wood duck in junior high wood shop – basically a silhouette of a typical duck shape screwed onto a flat wood base. Part of the gift I gave him that year was the labor I put in: the handpicking, the drawing, the shaping, the sanding, the staining and the not taking off my finger with a bandsaw – all, while earning course credit, graduating on time, moving out of the house, eventually. You’re welcome, Pops.

The other part of the gift, the thing he seemed to apparently love: a duck.

Really, it’s a win-win-win.

And all the supporting evidence was there, every year: at the eventual opening of the duck-shape wrapped thing with “Dad” scribbled on a taped-on tag, I could see that he was surprised, and I could really tell he really loved it. He would have this big smile, he’d hold it up proudly for my siblings to see the expert craftsmanship of their older brother and now, obviously: favorite child. He’d say he loved it. And he’d even go so far as to reach across his armchair and side hug me and then embrace the quadruple-polyurethaned-now-waterproof-wood-bird as the new favorite freshwater feathered friend in his collection – even giving it a spot in the front row on the shelf above the TV in his bedroom.

This played out the same, every year: every duck my dad got always got the same reaction – an almost over-the-top recognizing of all the heart and hard work I had put in and how much he loved the duck that he came out with – igniting affection both ways, undergirding the underlying satisfaction I felt of a gift well-received and a gifting well-done, and 100% committing himself to another duck, next year.

It always felt good – being his favorite – and giving him the thing he always wanted, every year. And, not to brag, but even today I’m a pretty good giver of gifts. I like to think I listen well and surprise my budding family with the thing they didn’t know they needed or thought they’d ever get – from Oprah’s favorite bluetooth earbuds, to gaming things they can play with their online buds.

My wife’s left arm is a veritable display case of excellent Christmas’s and Valentines Day’s and Mother’s Day’s gone by with a Buick’s worth of silver and flashy things from fingertip to elbow. And my children have apparently amassed plastic bins of masses of plastic and bouncy things, and even digital display things they don’t always play with anymore BUT, definitely don’t ignore, all the time.

Yep. So, while my ubergifting prowess hasn’t earned me a couple lines of Scriptures-prominence like our main man Abel, yet – at least the gifts I give don’t exclude me from God’s Presence, let alone the New Testament altogether, like the apparently most notorious gift giver in history: Cain.

Now granted, I may have had it a little easier than he did…what, with all the proof I had of what my dad loved – let alone, loved to receive – I mean, how could I give him anything but a duck for every given occasion?

In just a little bit of empathy for Cain, though, I’d have to admit I would struggle initially with the insecurity that comes with the uncertainty of finding EL SHADDAI, the perfect gift.

I mean, just what do you give the God Who already has everything?

But again, with all the giftings God has given me for gifting others, I’m sure we could find out! And, I’m more than willing to offer some tips, a couple templates, even lend Cain some tools if the roughed out shape of a waterfowl is the way he wants to go for God our Father, this upcoming Father’s Day.

But, way back at the beginning - what exactly did Cain do wrong to get him so afoul with God?

Let’s find out.

Goose!

Hey! Whatcha doing for the next 12ish minutes? Oh! You’re going to click on Part II: Cain You Imagine? and keep reading about how everything might have gone wrong for Cain? Me too! Totally not just saying that.

Read Part II…

One more thing

Not to brag, again, but Santa’s got nothing on my ability to gift-wrap a smile and others’ implied seasonal indebtedness to myself. BUT, the best Gift any of us ever have, and ever will receive, is what Jesus did 2000ish years ago to get rid of all our inherited eternal indebtedness: sin.

If you don’t already know what THAT means, give yourself a sec to click below and find out.

The Gospel

Behold(en), still