April 14, 2008

 

I just returned from South Africa after a 10 day trip with some of the best students and student leaders God’s kingdom has to offer. We did a 2 day retreat for 20 teenage African orphan students and a 2 day VBS for younger orphan children. We work with an organization there called Horizon International. For more info check out the link on this site.

I wrote this post before I left but it is being published in our Northview Connection quarterly magazine so I waited till it came out before releasing this. Thanks for thinking with me.

 

Babies and Oceans

 

Recently my wife and I were visiting our daughter and her husband and their children in West Palm Beach. My daughter, Beverly, had just given birth to their third child and first son. His name is Benjamin Douglas. He is beautiful but he scares me. All babies scare me when they’re babies. I remember when we brought our twin boys home from the hospital. They were so tiny, so frail, so wrinkly. And I am so klutzy and clumsy. I always worried that I would drop one. And every one was always saying, “Make sure you hold their heads. Don’t let their heads fall back.” I was afraid one of their heads was going to fall off. All these thoughts came back to me when Beverly offered to let me hold Benjamin. Bravely, I mustered all my nerve and accepted the wonderful privilege of holding this little gift. And for about 3 minutes it was really great. Then my hands started going to sleep and then my arms and I started thinking, “If my shoulders go to sleep I know I will drop him and his head will fall off.” So I politely offered him back to his mother and asked if Ayla, the two year old, would like to go to the beach. I figured the best thing I could do would be to occupy the two year old and let mom and Ben bond. Now two year olds I can handle. Their heads are firmly attached, they can do more than cry to communicate their needs and they are very educational; especially at the beach. Ayla and I have been to the beach a few times and we have a routine. Once we get to the beach and arrange all her toys, she immediately wants me to take her favorite one, a little plastic watering can, and fill it with water from the ocean. She then proceeds to pour out the water from the can onto whatever creation she has made in the sand. Then she asks me to fill it up again. The watering can only holds about a quart of water so I am making quite a few trips to the water’s edge for refills. We had been playing like this for awhile when another toddler and her dad came up to investigate. Before long the two toddlers were taking turns pouring out the water and the two dads were taking turns running back and forth to the ocean. It wasn’t long before there was a dispute between the toddlers over whose turn it was to pour out the water. The dispute turned into to a screaming tug of war over the watering can. At this point I began reconsidering the virtues of holding sleeping infants. Actually I had an epiphany. Remember what I said about two year olds being educational at the beach. It suddenly occurred to me how adults can be just like children. Here were these two children fighting over a quart of water within 30 feet of the ocean. We two dads were more than happy to bring them all the water they could use, but they wanted that quart at that moment. What were they fighting over really? Whatever it was, it caused them to suddenly forget; sacrifice really, the vast resources of the ocean as they focused on that one quart of water. What vast resources do we as adults sacrifice as we fight to hold on to the familiar; the comfortable; the known; the whatever? I could never have imagined that my life would take me where it has. But I have always prayed that I will be brave enough to let God do whatever he wants in my life and not become stagnant in the familiar; the routine. The creedal scripture of my life is Romans 12:1,2 which says, “In view of God’s mercy I urge you to offer yourself as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable act of worship.” That one verse sums up the challenge I desire to both learn and live up to on a daily basis. It seems basic to the redeemed life. In an effort to apply this text in my life I have practiced a very simple discipline for the past 27 years. I take a blank sheet of paper and as I sign the bottom of it I pray that God would fill in the page that day. In essence I say, “God I sign off on whatever you want to do in my life.” This helps me because too often my tendency is to fill in all the lines of the page and then ask God to sign off on what I think is best. I would be sacrificing all the plans and resources God wants to pour into my life if I did that. That would be like fighting over a quart of water at oceans edge. It also helps me because I tend to want to live my life with a sense of control. Signing the page allows me to live with a sense of abandonment and faith. I guess that is like little Benjamin in my arms, completely; maybe even unconsciously trusting that I would never drop him and let his head fall off. I guess I can learn from babies too.

Just a thought