“Life
gets easier and a lot more fun when you use a child as your role model.” Zen to Zany[i]
This
week I brought a coloring book home from a work trip and gave it to my four
year old. He immediately said, “Dad, do
you want to color with me?” After two
days away, I of course said yes. Two
minutes into it we were swapping crayons, admiring each other’s work, and he
looked up at me with a big smile and said, “Isn’t this great, dad?” and went
right back to coloring.
As
we colored together a few more minutes, I started listening to the news on TV
and wondering if I’d missed any important emails while driving all day, so I
sat back on the couch, turned up the TV, checked my phone, and put down my
crayon. As soon as I did, he turned to
me and said, “Dad, you’re not coloring.” And I said, “I know,” and he just
says, “Why?”
Why,
dad?
In
that moment of pure coloring bliss, that moment we’d just locked eyes and
agreed was great - why check out of the glory in front of you and go somewhere
else in your mind?
Who’s
got living figured out at this moment, the dad or the four year old?
This
is the difference between receiving the kingdom as a child and not receiving it
at all. Look at the text, it’s not about
believing like a child, it’s about receiving and entering into the Kingdom of
God. It’s living as though the God of everything
is alive and present in everything and everyone and in every moment of your
life. And Jesus says you’ve got to come
at it like a child or you are going to completely miss it. It’s natural and perfectly normal, but we lose our awareness of the glory all around us the older we get. I saw a sign once that said “Adulthood is like going to the vet, and we are dogs just happy for a ride in the car until we realize where we are going.” Life naturally gets more complicated as we go along, but there’s great wisdom in childhood that Jesus says is the secret to the kingdom life.
So
here are a couple of observations from the dad of a four year old about what
this kid wisdom and kingdom wisdom is he might be talking about.
First,
kids don’t have such robust egos to protect like we do, and they are much
happier for it. They don’t really get
offended the way we do. How much of my
life has been spent reeling from being offended by what someone did or said
about me? It’s impossible to do away with this ego, but we can take it a little
less seriously.
Kids
come with a robust ability to forgive. Kids fight.
Man, do they fight! But five
minutes later, you’d never know there was a cross word between them as they are
back playing together. They just move
on. Think of all the fun and joy of
being a kid they’d miss out on if they held grudges against each other the way
we do.
They
are able to forgive themselves as well.
Again, with no strong ego to deal with, they just accept what we tell them
is the gospel truth – you are loved, you are amazing, everyone makes mistakes, you are wonderfully made
exactly as you are. We tell them and
they believe it! They
can accept forgiveness and accept themselves absolutely.
“Yesterday ended at
midnight,” as Zig Ziglar used to say. Move on and stop
worrying about a past you can’t change. That’s kid wisdom.
Kids
also aren’t fretting about what is ahead of them. This is kingdom wisdom as well. “And can any of you by worrying add a single
hour to your span of life?” Think also about
Mary and Martha. Martha was running
around worrying about fixing up the place and Mary was just enjoying the moment
with Jesus. Jesus tells Martha she’s
missed the whole point. Mary on the
other hand, is like a kid enjoying the company of Jesus right in front of
her.
Every
day of December my kid would wake up and go, “Is it Christmas day?” and I’d
say, “Not yet,” and he’d move on with his day.
This was the biggest thing in his near future, but once he figured out
it wasn’t happening today, he left it alone and moved on. He had a full great day ahead of him to be
about the business of living. There is a
deep trust in the goodness of life and the future in this kid wisdom of letting
tomorrow take care of itself.
Not
worrying with the past and future leaves what kid and kingdom living is at its
core – being completely present to the wonder of the moment right in front of
you. That’s what kids do – they live
150% in the moment. That’s entering the kingdom
as a child, fully awake to life as it is going on right now, right in front of
you, with the people right around you in the place you occupy – with all its
joy, beauty, hurt, sorrow and holiness shot through it.
My
brother gave my four year old a ninja turtle costume for Christmas that he
immediately put on. After looking in the
mirror, he came out with a big smile on his face & said, “Check it out, dad.
This is what awesome looks like!” That’s
a kingdom proclamation if I’ve ever heard one.
When
kids are really let loose to live life for the day, not cooped up indoors, but
let outside to laugh and run and give life all they’ve got, they end the day completely
spent. You may find them asleep on the
bathroom floor or in their chair at dinner.
They’ve gone for it. Linder Unders has some adult advice for living along the same lines:
All this talk of saving souls,
Souls weren’t meant to save,
Like Sunday clothes that
give out at the seams.
They’re made for wear;Souls weren’t meant to save,
Like Sunday clothes that
give out at the seams.
they come with a lifetime guarantee.
Don’t save your soul.
Pour it out like rain
on cracked, parched earth.
Give your soul away,
or pass it like a candle flame.
Sing it out,
or laugh it up the wind.
Souls were meant for hearingor pass it like a candle flame.
Sing it out,
or laugh it up the wind.
breaking hearts, for puzzling dreams,
remembering August flowers,
forgetting hurts.
These folk who talk of saving souls!
They have the look of bullies
who blow out candles before you
sing happy birthday,
and want the world to be in alphabetical order.
I will spend my soul,They have the look of bullies
who blow out candles before you
sing happy birthday,
and want the world to be in alphabetical order.
Playing it out like sticky string
Into the world …
So I can catch every last thing I touch.
Next time someone asks, “Is your soul saved?”
Say, “No, it’s spent, spent, spent!”[ii]
Say, “No, it’s spent, spent, spent!”[ii]
Pour it
out. Don’t hold it back. Put yesterday to bed and let tomorrow take
care of itself; you’ve got a wonderful today full of God’s glory waiting to be
discovered in the kingdom life. That’s
kid wisdom and kingdom wisdom.
It really is
easier and a lot more fun when you’ve got a child as your role model and when
you enter into the kingdom as a child.
You may
just catch yourself, fully present to a glorious day, looking around saying, “You
know what? This is what awesome looks like.”
