Birgitta, Emerald, and I took an interesting road trip last weekend resulting in the car odometer gaining 1236 miles. Leaving Michigan, we headed west through Illinois, across the Mississippi River, and into Iowa to Birgitta’s old college. After depositing her and Emerald to visit friends there, I continued west to connect with friends I hadn’t seen in 10 years.

Driving through landscape reputed to be the richest farmland in the whole world, my journey ended at the home of Becky and Fred, a couple Nate and I met in the 1970’s when we began raising children together. Eventually they moved back to Fred’s childhood home and farm, where he and his brother have been successfully raising cattle (2500 at a time) and farming thousands of acres to feed them, for 36 years.

As we toured the farm from the comfort of an air-conditioned mini-van, I asked endless questions and occasionally got out to get up close and personal with farm residents. The cattle have pretty faces and come in all colors: black, brown, gold, red, beige, white and multicolored. Several of the stock pens, though, held only black. “How come?” I said.

“Those are Black Angus,” Fred said, “certified to have Angus in their blood lines. They bring a higher price, and their meat is marbled to taste better.”

As we drove past a cattle chute he explained how the cattle march one after another through the chute into the livestock truck that hauls them to the packing house. But before they can morph into prime rib and hamburger, each has to be recorded, the Angus a different price than the rest.

I loved my farm tour, and our time ran out before my questions did. Later, while diving east to pick up Birgitta and Emerald, I thought about those Angus cattle. It would be easy to look at any of the cattle and say, “Oh, there’s an Angus,” but of course that wouldn’t always be accurate.

The Bible says something similar. One person might be an authentic Christian and another a “hypocrite” (Jesus’ word). They might look and sound the same but as Jesus said about the imposters, “Their hearts are far from me.”

So how do we tell who’s who? The Bible says, “Test them. If they acknowledge Jesus as fully man and fully God, they’re bona fide believers. If they’re promoting a different philosophy, they’re counterfeits.” (1 John 4:1-6)

Just as the Angus and non-Angus get sorted at the packing house, God will one day sort the rest of us, too. And when he does, I want to be sure I really am who I think I am.

Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ ” (Mark 7:6-7)

Sunday afternoon I was at the beach catching up on my reading when a family of four walked over the dune. The boy (about 7) and girl (about 5) were dressed for sand-play and got busy immediately. Without buckets or shovels they used their hands to begin carving out a pond next to the shallow creek, excitedly conversing about their project.

But Daddy had brought a ball and two mitts, one for him and one for his boy. “C’mon!” he coaxed, with pep in his voice. “Let’s play some ball!”

His son, deep into digging, wasn’t interested. So his daddy began tossing the ball high in the air, catching it himself, calling again and again for his builder-boy to join him, but he repeatedly answered, “I don’t want to, Daddy.”

Peeking over my book to watch what would happen, I created several scenarios in my mind:

• Maybe the dad was busy all week, unable to find father-son play time, and this was it.
• Perhaps he’d recently enrolled his boy in Pee Wee Baseball and hoped to coach him that afternoon.
• Or was he a controller, fathering according to a strict schedule that included baseball that day?

Would this father patiently wait for his son? Would he insist he play ball? Would he leave the beach in a huff?

Suddenly the boy initiated his own call. “Hey, Daddy! Come and make this pond with us. We need your help!”

His daddy set aside his ball and mitts and moved into his children’s project, showing them how to use driftwood as shovels, adding a side canal, and praising their work. When the pond was “complete”, his son was ready for baseball, and the two of them played with gusto.

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Scripture is generously sprinkled with references to fatherhood, and we all have (or at least had) a father. God uses father-metaphors to teach men how to lead their families, love their wives, discipline their children, and show tolerance toward others. But on the flip side of that instruction is his invitation to all of us, men and women alike, to call him Father. He wants to lead, love, discipline, and yes, show tolerance to us when we disappoint him.

Our heavenly Father wants us to embrace an intimate relationship with him that resembles the father-son joy I saw on the beach last Sunday. That was some good fathering, which is exactly what God offers to us.

BTW, before that family left the beach, the little boy had constructed an obstacle course…..

…..through which he challenged his daddy to try skipping stones without hitting the sticks. It turned out to be more fun than pond-making, better than baseball, and a great demonstration of the warm connection God the Father wants to have with every one of us.

“May…. God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)

Life is full of new beginnings, which usually means the ending of something else. This week baby Emerald ended her night-time partnership with a bassinet and began sleeping in a larger bed.

Birgitta chose a Pack ‘n Play over a traditional crib for now, and Emerald is appreciating its soft sides. The first night in her new bed we heard her fingers scraping at the netting, exploring her new surroundings with curiosity.

Babies probably experience more endings/beginnings in the first year of their lives than they will in any other year, and they usually do it with eagerness. It seems as soon as Emerald gets used to something (like her Bumbo seat), she’s nearly done with it. This week she’s practicing sitting on her own and when placed in the Bumbo squirms left and right to get out of it.

But babies aren’t the only ones coping with continual change. The rest of us are there, too, not always as quick to flex as the little ones. When we age, we seem to love non-change more and more, or maybe it’s just me. I think it’s generally difficult to make frequent adjustments to “the way it is,” once we’re in the autumn of our lives.

But I’ve been watching other people in my age bracket and beyond, looking to see if any of them exhibit flexibility and a willingness to embrace change. Amazingly, a few do it with ease, even with flair, all the way through their 80’s and 90’s. How do they do that?

Scripture insists we can stay “fresh and green” until the end of our lives (Psalm 92:14), remaining productive for God, others, and ourselves. In looking at that Psalm, I learned exactly how this can be done:

• By acting righteously
• By willingly planting ourselves in the house of the Lord
• By testifying to God’s righteousness

I found the same thing in one of the Proverbs: “The righteous will thrive like a green leaf.” (11:28)

Such a promise then begs the question, so how do we get righteous? Psalm 1 lets us know: we’re to take delight in God’s law, thinking about it during the day and also during the night. If we do that, it says, everything else we do will prosper.

Everything!

That’s quite a promise. And along that same vein, Jeremiah tells us that if we put our confidence in God and trust him no matter how disastrous our circumstances, we’ll always be like a well-rooted tree whose leaves are continually green, “never failing to bear fruit.” (17:7-8)

Never!

And if all that is true, old age can be all kinds of fun! Embracing new beginnings without stressing over old endings will be as easy as….

….well, as easy as it is for little Emerald.

“The righteous… will still bear fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and green.” (Psalm 92:14)