The five sweetest people in our family are completely and utterly “un-messed-up” by sin. It’s a wonderful thing to watch young grandchildren live their lives so voraciously–just hungering for life’s next adventure while having zero enemies and zero concerns about the state of the Union, much less the world. It’s the most refreshing thing to try and back out of the reality in which Satan has placed us all, and look at today through their eyes. This day is just the next opportunity to live and laugh and love God.
Here’s the prayer our oldest, Ezra, led yesterday at lunch. I want to remember its sweetness.
Dear God,
Thank you that we got to go and worship you today. Thank you for this food that Mammy made for us. Thank you all the things you give us every day. (Then Eliza started chiming in her prayer requests, so
Ezra added those—“Thank you for Eliza’s teacher in her class. Help Eliza to obey.”) Help us to all be good. Thank you for our nice, soft beds we get to sleep in. In Jesus” name, Amen.
Amen. He is just so, so good. If you have young children or grandchildren, take the time to savor the world through innocent eyes now and then,
Just before bedtime, a giant spider began weaving her web in extreme intricacy, just above the trash can that Ezra’s mom was just about to pull to the road. Ezra wanted us all to see God’s amazing design in that spider and web. His mom showed us that even on his underside, God had made this spider have an ugly “face” to scare away her predators. Ezra ran to get a flashlight, so we could see the amazing intricate web she effortlessly spun. We even watched the spider’s huge shadow on the brick behind her, as the light shone on her, casting a sci-fi-worthy image on the side of the house. Ezra commented about our amazing God. (I’m so glad that He has given us the things we need to resist THE predator of our lives, when we really want to resist Him.)
Oh, and that little spider, just like that little boy, can weave her way into places that I could never even go. “The spider taketh hold with her hands,
and is in kings’ palaces” (Proverb 30:28).
God is amazing. May I remember today that the child’s perspective is the real one. He loves us and He has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
“Suffer the little children to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”…words of Jesus, who conquered life’s horrific “messer-upper” for me.
