Star of the Show

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Young children soak up information like beach sand soaks up rain, taking it all in. And once in a while they come up with something that makes us scratch our heads and say, “Where did that come from?”

The other morning Skylar, my oldest grandchild (age 3) had come awake in her bedroom, so her daddy went in to greet her. He found her peeking through the blinds. “Daddy, it’s morning! I heard the sky putting the stars away.”

The mind of a child is a brilliant thing. But truth be told, our adult minds are astonishing, too. It’s just that our heads get so crowded with detail, creative thought often gets buried.

When God hears an original idea like Skylar’s, I imagine he smiles, pleased with what she said. She simplified a complicated concept and accepted it completely. Could we, too, please God with this kind of creative thinking? The biblical David tried, and succeeded:

  • Let the light of your face shine on us. (Ps. 4:6)
  • Keep me as the apple of your eye. (Ps. 17:8)
  • You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. (Ps. 18:28)
  • Extol him who rides on the clouds. (Ps. 68:4)
  • You turned my wailing into dancing. (Ps. 30:11)
  • I thirst for you… in a dry and parched land where there is no water. (Ps. 63:1)
  • Apart from you I have no good thing. (Ps. 16:2)
  • Were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. (Ps. 40:5)

All of us can think about God, the ultimate original, and come up with fresh things to say about/to him. He demonstrates for us with an example. He says he had no beginning and will have no end, yet he calls himself the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 22:13)

What does he mean?

I think he took the difficult concept of “no beginning” and “no ending” and gave it imagery we could grasp. In a sense, he was doing what Skylar did, wrapping logic around an illogical idea. Children have no trouble accepting the illogical wonder of God and his world, as long as they can cloak the ideas in logic as she did. The sky putting stars away? It makes perfect sense.

If we find ourselves stymied about God and what he’s done or not done, it might be good to reduce the problem to a simple, everyday picture. Maybe then we’d be able to understand (and accept) the uncertain and puzzling parts of life.

It worked for David.

It works for Skylar.

And it’ll work for us, too.

“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” (Psalm 147:4-5)

 

Without a Wag

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Our dog Jack has been a gem of a pet from the beginning. The absence of a bark was what first drew our attention to him as he sat in a chain-link cage at a pet rescue center, awaiting adoption. Sitting quietly in his assigned cell, he looked sad compared to every other dog, all of whom were barking, pawing at the cage doors, even leaping up and down.

When we learned he’d been in the cage less than an hour and was only 9 months old, we brought him home. True to his demeanor at the shelter, he’s been a docile, quiet dog for the 8 years we’ve had him, friendly to other dogs in the neighborhood.

Last week an unfriendly yellow lab whose owner had shouted out a caution to us, began wagging as he and Jack did their circular sniffing. “Wow!” she said, anxious over her dog’s response to ours. “I can’t believe it! He isn’t being aggressive!” It was as if Jack had taught him to wag.

But this week something sad happened to our wagging Jack. His long tail seemed unable to show the cheerful emotion it always had. It hung limply as if he’d had a stroke-of-the-tail. He seemed nervous, unsettled, hovering close to one of us at all times. Because he’d never been a complainer, we couldn’t tell if anything hurt.

All of us have days when we don’t feel like wagging. Our spirits hang limp and even the effort to smile seems too much. It’s no fun for others to be around us, and that works both ways; we don’t want to be with others, either. At that low point the unconditional love of God kicks into high gear.

No bad mood or sour disposition can discourage him from wanting to be with us. When we’re bad company for others, he’s moves close to spend time with us. Best of all, when we don’t feel we can go on, he supplies a reason we can. Our doldrums are an easy fix for him, if we just ask.

God even cares for animals. We googled, “Can a dog break his tail?” and found online help. The most logical explanation for Jack’s limp tail is soft tissue trauma such as a bruise. We thought back over the last few days and remembered a moment when he’d fallen backwards while trying to jump into the back of a car. That same leap used to be easy but this summer has been iffy. Most likely he landed on the base of his tail in a crooked way, because it was that night his tail stopped wagging.

The online vet assured us, “It’ll resolve in a few days,” good news for all of us, especially Jack. Next week he turns 9. What would a birthday party be without a wagging tail?

“The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.” (Psalm 32:10b)

Helped by Highlights

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Klaus recently taught me how to use a Microsoft Word tool I didn’t even know existed. “If you press ‘control’ and ‘f’ together,” he said, “a box comes up with an option to highlight certain words in a document. Let’s say you’re wondering how many times you’ve used the word ‘dog’ in one of your posts. Type it in, click ‘highlight all’ and all the ‘dogs’ will be come up in yellow.”

I tried it, loved it, and have used it daily ever since. This morning I was thinking about the beautifully bright highlights on the computer screen and thought, “Wouldn’t it be spectacular if I could highlight God’s messages to me in bright yellow?” I could be absolutely sure I was following his advice, making correct decisions, and catching every sin. There would be no wiggle-room for mistakes or detours.

He could also highlight every blessing in yellow so I wouldn’t miss a single one. Although it’s easy to spot the big ones, the little ones often slip past me unnoticed. God knows my tendency to focus first on the faded parts of life, the grey zones, the black things. They loom large, dominating all things visible, and he could help significantly with lots of eye-catching yellow surrounding all the good stuff.

When I was in journalism school, we studied advertising signage and learned the most attention-grabbing color was yellow (on a black background). It’s arresting and easy to read, commanding our attention. That’s exactly what I need.

God could certainly do this. But he doesn’t.

Actually he could do lots of stuff to make things easier for us but doesn’t. Why is that? Since he hasn’t highlighted the answer, I’m not sure. But since my relationship with him is daughter-to-father, I’ve tried to analyze it by studying human parenting strategies.

Teaching youngsters most effectively is simple. We issue the rules, then hope self-discipline will come after they experience natural consequences. For example, if we open the oven and say, “It’s hot! Don’t touch it!” they usually touch anyway. But a little burn teaches them flawlessly. Had we printed the word “hot” on the oven door in captivating yellow letters, it wouldn’t have been very effective.

Another example: when we teach a teen to manage a debit card, we can highlight our counsel: “BIG FEES FOR OVERDRAWING!” But more effective is having to pay $36 for going in the hole. None of us likes to obey advisory signs, and most of us aren’t very good at it. And that’s probably why God doesn’t highlight anything in yellow for us.

He knows it wouldn’t do a bit of good.

Whatever his reason, I’m not going to stress over it but will find my highlighting-fun by way of “control-plus-f.”

“I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go.” (Psalm 143:8)