God Holds Horses
I got home from work the other day to find my wife exasperated. My son is 3, and well… He’s a boy. It had been a rough day. Dinner wasn’t any better. Josh barely touched his food and had to be sent to his room for repeatedly messing with the water jug on the table. After a little while I went to talk to him and told him that he still had to go back and finish his supper. He was still sitting with virtually untouched stir fry after everyone else was done. I was standing at the sink with my hands in soapy water, listening to Andrew Peterson’s “After the Last Tear Falls”. The line, “And in the end, the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again…” set me thinking.
It would be easy to righteously execute judgment on my son for his disobedience. It is often the very thing that I want to do most. But as I stood there, scrubbing a plate, I found myself longing to go and patiently feed my boy and tell him stories. He needs to learn to do things when he is told, and so this line of action may be counter-productive. It’s easy for him, and all children really, to borrow a parents will. I want him to eat, and I know that if I go to him and distract him from whatever seems unpleasant to him about the meal, I can get him to eat. It can actually be quite fun. He was once having a hard time with some peas. I told him that they were little clams trying to snap his tongue, and so he had to crunch them up and send them down into the pit before they could disable his mouth. It worked great. He borrowed my will. He made it his own. I didn’t coerce him at all.
But learning to stand on your own two feet is important. We need to be disciplined to do things for reasons other than simple desire. If someone always stepped in to help us along, we would be crippled in many ways. This is just what happens so often in life. We all know people that carry these handicaps. They can’t go into a new situation because someone they know and trust won’t be there with them. They suffer from emotional malnourishment because they won’t share their lives with anyone. And you could go on.
Back to Josh though, as I watched him stubbornly sulking in his seat, I got one of those glimpses into God’s heart, I think. I’ve so often heard that God restrains his great anger toward sinners and needs to hold back his holy wrath constantly or the lightening bolts would never stop flying. There is some truth to that I think, but his longsuffering is not merely or even mostly due to his anger. I think he has a much harder time with his love. He holds back his immense tenderness and kindness much more. My mind went to the story of the lost son in Luke. He was off with Daddy’s money with holes in his pockets and bankrupt of gratitude. But I saw that father, watching every day for his son’s return. It was “while he was still a long way off” that he ran to meet him, falling on his neck, kissing him and interrupting that carefully planned speech. I wonder how hard it was for that father to not set off himself to town and hunt down his prodigal.
This may sound strange, but I think Jesus is God running. I think that Christ is the personification of a sprinting God, while we are still a long way off. He ran to the cross to meet us. He is waiting there for us to come to our senses. He could come further, but will not force our love. His great love needs restraining, which is surprising when we see what that love has already done. To take our garbage, our sins, on himself. To take the blame, to take the fall for my wasted life, and then to bring me through death with him into resurrection and promise me everything. It’s hard to imagine more love.
So, sometimes I’m going to tell my kids stories and distract them a bit to get them through the lima beans of life. But other times I’m going to hold back a little. That’s love too. I can’t wait until I need no more growing or maturing and I can be a full recipient of God’s thunderous love. If you listen real carefully, you can hear the hoofs off in the distance…
BJ
It would be easy to righteously execute judgment on my son for his disobedience. It is often the very thing that I want to do most. But as I stood there, scrubbing a plate, I found myself longing to go and patiently feed my boy and tell him stories. He needs to learn to do things when he is told, and so this line of action may be counter-productive. It’s easy for him, and all children really, to borrow a parents will. I want him to eat, and I know that if I go to him and distract him from whatever seems unpleasant to him about the meal, I can get him to eat. It can actually be quite fun. He was once having a hard time with some peas. I told him that they were little clams trying to snap his tongue, and so he had to crunch them up and send them down into the pit before they could disable his mouth. It worked great. He borrowed my will. He made it his own. I didn’t coerce him at all.
But learning to stand on your own two feet is important. We need to be disciplined to do things for reasons other than simple desire. If someone always stepped in to help us along, we would be crippled in many ways. This is just what happens so often in life. We all know people that carry these handicaps. They can’t go into a new situation because someone they know and trust won’t be there with them. They suffer from emotional malnourishment because they won’t share their lives with anyone. And you could go on.
Back to Josh though, as I watched him stubbornly sulking in his seat, I got one of those glimpses into God’s heart, I think. I’ve so often heard that God restrains his great anger toward sinners and needs to hold back his holy wrath constantly or the lightening bolts would never stop flying. There is some truth to that I think, but his longsuffering is not merely or even mostly due to his anger. I think he has a much harder time with his love. He holds back his immense tenderness and kindness much more. My mind went to the story of the lost son in Luke. He was off with Daddy’s money with holes in his pockets and bankrupt of gratitude. But I saw that father, watching every day for his son’s return. It was “while he was still a long way off” that he ran to meet him, falling on his neck, kissing him and interrupting that carefully planned speech. I wonder how hard it was for that father to not set off himself to town and hunt down his prodigal.
This may sound strange, but I think Jesus is God running. I think that Christ is the personification of a sprinting God, while we are still a long way off. He ran to the cross to meet us. He is waiting there for us to come to our senses. He could come further, but will not force our love. His great love needs restraining, which is surprising when we see what that love has already done. To take our garbage, our sins, on himself. To take the blame, to take the fall for my wasted life, and then to bring me through death with him into resurrection and promise me everything. It’s hard to imagine more love.
So, sometimes I’m going to tell my kids stories and distract them a bit to get them through the lima beans of life. But other times I’m going to hold back a little. That’s love too. I can’t wait until I need no more growing or maturing and I can be a full recipient of God’s thunderous love. If you listen real carefully, you can hear the hoofs off in the distance…
BJ
posted by BJ at 12:53 p.m.
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