1 February 2011
How My Kids Teach Me About God
Being 3, my son is a master of repeating his requests over and over, sometimes growing more frantic and demanding as he goes. I start out by patiently explaining why he can't have it, or can't do that yet, or that I'm in the middle of getting it for him and for him to just wait a little while. As he goes on, I struggle to continue to be calm and patient, and sometimes I find myself saying "stop asking for it!" or telling him that if he keeps bugging me about it, he won't get it. It actually reminds me of that parable of the widow bothering the judge until he gives in and grants her request (Luke 18:1-8). Then I think of how I often ask God for something over and over, never ceasing, and yet He doesn't tell me to stop asking. In fact, we're told to keep asking: Matthew 7:7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Now if I can learn to be childlike in my asking and trusting, and yet not childish, with the kicking and screaming and demanding.
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I remember watching this video once...of an elderly man asking his middle-aged son what something was. He asked him over and over and over and over. His son finally lost his temper and yelled at him, frustrated, "Why do you not hear me? I've told you 20 times already!" The elderly man went up to his room, got a journal, brought it back, opened it to a particular spot, and gave it to his son. His son read (paraphrasing): "Today my son asked me what bird we were looking at. He asked me 23 times. I answered the same each time."
ReplyDeleteIt was such a moving video that I wish I still knew how to find it.
I've heard of that before, or have seen the video. I'd forgotten about it until you mentioned it, though. I'll have to keep that in mind when K asks me over and over and over what something is.
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