Category Archives: Children

Longing to Belong

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When I was 3, my family moved from a close-knit Chicago neighborhood to “the country.” Today that “country” is just one of many Chicago area suburbs (Wilmette), but in 1948 it was still the wide open spaces.

Highcrest SchoolI wasn’t of school age yet, but my sister Mary was marched off to kindergarten at the small-ish country school a stone’s throw from our house. She was quiet and shy, not especially happy about being away from home, but Mom quickly became involved as the official Room Mother of her class, which helped. Mom was in and out of school on a regular basis (with me in tow), and I thought school was absolutely magical.

The kindergarten room fascinated me with its boxes of fat colored crayons, giant jars of sweet-smelling white paste, and wooden chairs that were just my size. Each student had use of a tiny square of carpet to sit on, and by secretly investigating the white chalk (crunch), I learned it was delicious.

Not ready for schoolWhen I pleaded with Mom to let me be a school-kid too, she always had the same frustrating answer. “When you’re ready.”

A year passed, and the next fall Mary went into 1st grade, but Mom still wouldn’t let me go. I thought I was more than ready, and since we lived just across a field from the school, it wasn’t long before I snuck over there on my own.

When I got to the kindergarten room, Mary’s former teacher recognized me and kindly asked if I wanted to sit on one of the carpet squares with the other children “before I went back home.” My dream had come true, though it was short-lived. In just a few minutes Mom was at the door.

All of us long to belong: to a classroom, a club, a family, a neighborhood, or any number of other groups. This longing is, I believe, put into us by God, since he values community and is an advocate of togetherness. So there’s nothing wrong with it.

At 3But longing to belong has its risks, too. It’s important to seek entrance into the right groups at the right time, letting God be the one to show us the which, the where, and especially the when. That includes everything from starting kindergarten to moving into a retirement home. It’s best if we wait till he has us ready.

There were many reasons why I couldn’t be a kindergartener at the age of 3, but eventually my time did come, and it happened just as Mom said: when I was ready.

Kindergarten(Front row, 4th from right)

Life will go much smoother if we wait for God’s readiness rather than push ahead of him on our own. It should always be his call, and in the mean time we should simply say, “I’m ready, Lord…. whenever you are.”

“Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” (Matthew 6:33  The Message)

Face to Face

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Yesterday Birgitta and Emerald shared some giggle-time watching YouTube videos of laughing babies. Emerald responded with delight, as if each face was part of her inner circle of friends.

I see you!What is it about a picture of a baby that delights another baby? Even when she looks at herself in a mirror and smiles, she might not know it’s her, but she knows it’s another baby-face and laughs in response.

Not so with adult faces. Most little ones stare with skepticism at pictures of adults unless they know them personally. In some mysterious way a baby knows that another baby is “somebody like me.”

After reading the Bible, I’ve gotten the impression God looks at people much the same way, smiling at us with pleasure. Scripture says, “He delights in his people.” (Psalm 149:4) This is illogical and mysterious, since he’s perfect and we’re far from it. So why does he delight in us?

Could it be because he made us “in his image?” In what sense, though, are we the image of him? The only thing I can think of is that he and we are all eternal. Or maybe he enjoys us just because he made us. Even in our human world, when we make something we get attached to it, whether it’s a story we’ve written, a picture we’ve painted, or a room we’ve designed.

Despite those possibilities of why God takes pleasure in us, the most probable reason is that we’ve made the righteous choice to choose him, enjoying him personally, directly, one-on-one. When I think of him delighting in us because we’re delighting in him, it begins to make sense.

Still, there are verses that step outside of us focusing on him, passages that flat-out say how much he enjoys us. For example, Psalm 18:19: “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.” And another one: “The Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory.” (Psalm 149:4)

Even in these, though, we see how “rescuing us” and “crowning us” has been accomplished only through his Son. So he can delight in us because he delights first in Jesus and then sees us through the lens of that perfection.

But if we want to work on being more Jesus-like ourselves, he tells us how:

  • take time to read and study the Bible (Psalm 112:1)
  • do our best to obey his commands (Psalm 119:47)
  • fear him and put our hope in his love (Psalm 147:11)
  • speak words of praise to and about him (Psalm 70:4)
  • daily listen for his wisdom (Proverbs 8:34)
  • strive to live blamelessly (Proverbs 11:20)
  • recognize that only he can save us (Isaiah 61:10)

And then, just as Emerald smiles when she sees another baby, God will smile on us.

“The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.” (Psalm 37:23)

You decide.

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Brand newWhen a new baby comes into the world, his or her needs must all be met by someone else. Newborns have no ability to help themselves, and if a baby bottle of nourishing milk was lying an inch from his or her mouth but wasn’t fed by someone else, the little one would starve.

Because of that complete helplessness, parenthood is a massive undertaking. Moms and dads can choose to do a thorough job or none at all, though thankfully most choose wisely and care well for their little ones.

 

Deciding what she'll hearSlowly but surely children take over the pieces of their lives, starting with holding up their own heads. Later they sit, crawl, walk, and feed themselves. But for many years, what they see, hear, taste, and touch is controlled by parents.

Why did God set it up this way? Why are babies so helpless and parents so powerful?

Surely he wanted families to bond, and serving the needs of another is a good way to start. (Babies are especially good at forcing that one.) But the best possible reason God did it that way was his wanting us to mimic his fatherly role in our earthly parenting so we’ll better understand why he fathers the way he does. That reasoning works with both the pluses and minuses of a parent-child relationship.

As parents we learn to love our children intensely (as he loves us) and discipline them fairly (as he does us). We figure out how to provide for our kids (as he provides for us) and learn to let them make mistakes (as he does with us).

These parenting parallels and many others help us understand God and his ways a bit better than we otherwise might. Even if we haven’t had children, referring back to our own childhoods is a good way to better appreciate our bond with God the Father. And it’s especially helpful when life isn’t going our way.

TantrumWe don’t like the negatives, the same way a child doesn’t like to be told no. But when we consider that most of our no’s to children are for their own good, it gets easier to cooperate with (and eventually appreciate) God’s no’s to us.

And as we let our children pay the painful natural consequences of their decisions, whether it’s a toddler’s or a teen’s poor choice, it dawns on us that many of the messes we still get into as adults are our own doing, too. And God lets us foolishly move into them “for our own good.” Stumbling through miserable natural consequences of mistakes we’ve made is a guarantee we’ll do better next time.

Eventually our kids do grow into conscientious adults. We aren’t responsible for them after they turn 21, but as we all know, none of them are left out in the cold after they launch. Instead, God takes over from there. And what happens after that can be exciting to watch…. in their lives and in our own!

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” (Colossians 3:20)    [….which applies to the adult children of God, too!]