The Art of Being a Child

Last Sunday I gave a sermon on Mark 10, and a major idea from that text is our need to be small. The rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. The disciples ask how to be great in the kingdom. Jesus' response to both is a call for smallness. Give all that you have, serve, and become a slave to all. Jesus provides us a picture of that through himself as he lives a life of service and of giving; he offers the ultimate picture of this in his death.

One aspect of preparing for a sermon like this is to become familiar with the context of the passage and understanding how the passage fits with the rest of the book. What I noticed in this work is Jesus' call to become child-like. Right before the passage I preached on, Jesus has said that you will not enter the kingdom of God unless you have the heart of a child.

This struck me as exceedingly appropriate walking into the narrative of the rich young man's and the disciples' question. They want to prove their worth by doing. They want to earn their position. But this isn't what children do. Nor is this what parents want them to do. When I brought my two daughters home from the hospital, I didn't immediately demand that they start working to earn my love. No - all I wanted from them was to lie there helplessly in my arms, protected, warm, and restful.

So what it the art of being a child? I think I've got some experience here.

My father is very handy. I am not. So I invite him over when there’s a project to do. And in the midst of so many of the projects, as I've stood there, I've felt like such a little boy. Helpless, dependent, and lost, I am so, so small. So, so weak. And so, so grateful. Because it is there, in my weakness, that I, an aspiring adult male look up to my father and say, I need you. I just can’t do this. And he is there. In every corner of my house, I can look around and see little signs that say, “Your father loves you this much.”

There are days when I am a son who needs his mother. Facing challenging circumstances, dilemmas, opposition, pain, or fear, there are days I just want to sit down and talk to my mom. I want to be in her presence and talk, admitting my weakness and trepidation to one of the few people I am willing to admit it to, and rest in that. In those moments I am so small, resting in a mother’s love.

The art of being a child requires a full understanding that you cannot do it alone. It demands the vulnerability of saying "I need you." And it offers the joy of being cared for, of being safe, of being wrapped in the blanket of understanding that you are loved in an incomprehensible way.

Jesus is calling us to this smallness. Calling us to admit this dependence, admit our helplessness, admit that the law and our efforts will get us nowhere, admit that for us, it is impossible. Our abilities, our position, and our money will do nothing for us. Christ is the only thing that will.

It's something only a child would understand.

Coming Home

Emily and I and the girls just spent a terrific Spring Break week traveling, first to Kansas City, then to Oklahoma, than to Texas, then back North again. We stayed with friends and family and had a great trip full of picnics and pools, UNO games, shared meals, hikes, museums, and lots of shared family time and space. We got everything out of the trip we could have asked for. But when it was time to be done, there was little I wanted more than to be at home. 

As I get older, coming back home after a long absence becomes sweeter and sweeter to me. When my truck finally rolled into the driveway last night and I collapsed on my own couch, I breathed an audible, satisfying sigh. I was home. And what did that mean? That meant sleeping in my own bed, on my own pillows; and that meant at least 4 walls and many stairs between my snoring, coughing, stalling children and myself for that sleep. Being at home meant a remote control that I could actually understand, my loyal lab at my feet, not having to ask where the pill bottles and Q-tips were for my stubbornly infirmed ear, not having to find where I put my soap and shampoo before showering, the couch whose every cushion and corner I know how to manipulate for personally tailored comfort. 

I realized this morning, on our first full day back, that coming home is even more. Coming home is coming back to our home church after two absent weeks. It's friendly faces, a familiar sermon series, a group of people who know our weaknesses and needs and what makes us laugh. It's the comforts of a worldview and the opportunity to be reminded that God is good. Coming home to church is the necessary reminder that we are not God, and that the world does not exist to glorify us. In this case, the familiar is not necessarily more comfortable; it is simply much more satisfying than the weeks spent away.

Coming home is also coming home to Bible reading and to regular prayer. It is easy to get out of a pattern of both away from home. But there is a sense of home, of being exactly where I belong and where I was created to be and what I long to hear when I go back "home" to prayer and Scripture. The familiar words, the commands, the music and poetry, and the sense that all this, this right here, this at home, this all makes sense and will shelter me and be the setting for my life's work.

While we were away, Emily's grandfather passed away. This man became a grandfather to me after the passing of my own grandfather over ten years ago. A beloved, jovial, affectionate man, he brought joy to scores of family and friends in his life. We were able to make it back for his funeral, our last stop before we arrived back at home. For him, after 89 blessed years, he was ultimately called home to Christ. Funerals are always a mix of grief from loss and celebration of life. They are also often colored with the hope of the afterlife. My hope and joy is not that I'll see Chuck again one day, but that he's home, exactly where he was made to be.

In a society desperate to be going places, in so many ways, home is indeed sweet.

One After Another

I'm writing here tonight because of what I wrote last month.

I went into the month of February assuming that I wouldn't make my goal of 13,000 words for the month. After all, it's a short month. With two or three fewer days, it certainly would be harder. Also, I knew that I'd be uprooted out of my house and off a normal schedule for a week for home renovations. It actually turned into two weeks. I also knew that I had a full officiating schedule for most of the month and that I would be spending every weekend either working on the house or out of town. I kept writing, but I had given myself several outs. I had many ready-made excuses for when I would inevitably come up short.

And then I didn't come up short. I made it. In five blog posts, two letters, and 14 pages worth of prayer, I limped across the finish line at 13,108 words. I posted my final words on the blog two hours before leaving town on February 28. A simple satisfaction soothed me as I hit the "Publish" button on the blog.

Because February turned out okay, I've decided not to give up on March. I had given up on March a long time ago, even before I assumed February was in doubt. We are leaving for a week's worth of vacation. The house still has work to be done. And I'll be spending many nights preparing for the sermon I'm delivering on March 22. There's also two family birthdays and the NCAA basketball tournament that my beloved Panthers are a lock to enter. March is far out of reach. But now it isn't.

I thought it would be pretty easy to fail in March after failing in February. While I wasn't excited to string together two straight months of not making the goal, I had logical excuses. A blemished record in February meant that March would just be one more blip. Perhaps, I thought, I could try to just average out 13,000 each month for the year. That's the same, right? But now I haven't failed in February. And it makes it that much harder to surrender in March.

This is how momentum works. When you string together a couple of mistakes, then next one is so much easier. The first time you give in, give up, fail, be irresponsible, blow off your workout, ignore your reading, or take a shortcut, it's hard. There's something in your gut that doesn't sit well. You try to drown that out with excuses and rationalizations. But the next time? By the next time, it's barely an afterthought.

But the same is true of success. The same is true of the first day of a workout routine, a prayer routine, a successful quiz, an uncomfortable conversation, or serving your spouse. Once you decide to do it, and then act on it, the positive momentum rolls as well. I put two months of my goal together. The second month was in less than advantageous circumstances. I really don't want to give in now.

I've got a student in one of my classes right now who had an awful first semester. He failed. Big. He did little of anything all semester. But the second semester he decided to change things. He started with one assignment. Then another. Quietly, steadily, he built positive momentum. Halfway through the second semester, he's standing with an "A." More importantly, I see an unwillingness to allow himself to give in and not do the work, just this one time. Momentum is carrying him in the right direction.

I hope it carries me, somehow, to another 13,000 in March.