children and fathers

April 20, 2005

yesterday morning i came across a sight i have not yet seen in the pool before (i'm talking context-wise, the specific pool i swim at). a dad and his young son were in the pool together when i arrived—they were the only two in there. i didn't want to interrupt their activities, so i decided to swim in the lanes reserved for lane swimmers. normally i like swimming in the space they were in because you aren't restricted by how much space you take up. if you swim in the lanes, you run the risk of hitting the floating dividers with your hands/arms/feet if your stroke is too wide. in any case, the two of them were having such a great time, i couldn't bear to ruin it by jumping into my preferred swimming space.

as i swam, i couldn't help but notice their interaction with each other. there was a lot of fun, laughter and smiles going on. it was a beautiful scene. they'd splash water on each other, see how far they could splash water, and a host of other things. i didn't catch everything they did because i didn't want to stare at them.

the more i swam, the more i thought about their relationship together. and the more i thought about that, the more i thought about my relationship with my Heavenly Father. did i really and truly enjoy spending time with my Father God to the extent that the little boy did with his father? did i long to spend time with Him? could i enjoy simply being in His presence that much? i don't think i can say yes to those questions on a day-to-day basis. though, i have been there in the past. i remember waking up morning after morning truly thankful to be alive, and genuinely excited to get to the pool so i could spend time with Him. it's been a little more difficult as of late because my body hasn't been agreeing with me as much when i get up. it's more lethargic nowadays and there's a lot more pain. it's hard to feel excited and joyful when the pain sensors in your body are firing when you get up. but man, i so long to be like that little kid, delighting in my Father's love and presence.

on the flip side of things, that father reflects the heart of our Heavenly Father. God delights in us. He delights that we come to Him and desire to spend time with Him. He longs for that. He would want nothing more than for us to know Him in an intimate way. isn't that what worship is? isn't that what we were created for? He delights that we would choose to splash water with Him and He delights equally in splashing water with us.

i think one of the major highlights for a parent, is to hear their child say back to them, on their own free will, " i love you." the "i love you" cannot be elicited from a "i love you" to the child, nor can it be elicited from any other factor. it must be of their own free will. when that moment happens, i cannot even begin to picture what must go on in the heart of a parent. i think the same happens with our Father. He created us to know Him. He put everything on the line, His own Son, so that that would happen. if and when we say "i love you" to our Father, it must make God so delighted because the child He created and knew about since before the beginning of the universe, finally responded to Him the way He always desired.

i thought back to what it was like to be a child. i thought back to what it was like when we took road trips or went places with my parents. i remember that whenever i got into the car, i'd fall asleep, especially on the trips home. i trusted that my dad knew where he was going and that he would take me to our destination. i didn't question or fuss about it. realistically speaking, i didn't know where our destination was, nor could i have gotten myself there if i wanted to, but that's not my point. the point is that i trusted my dad to take me there, both in terms of his ability to get me there and his knowing where there was. i wasn't one of those "are we there yet" kids. if my dad wanted to take all the time in the world to get there, that would have been fine with me.

at 23, i want to know know where there is. i want to know all the details before embarking on the trip and i want to get there myself. this is the mentality of the western world. why is it that our childhood innocence was lost in that process? what happened? perhaps the cause can be attributed to the process of maturation, leading to greater individuality and responsibility.

as Christians we must fight the desire to do things our own way. our lives were bought with the blood of Christ—we are His. when we accepted Christ as the Lord of our lives, we gave Him the right and authority to govern our lives. so why is that we try so desperately to hold onto that which no longer belongs to us? why is that we get so upset when He decides to intervene and our plans are interrupted? why do we question and wonder God about the future? do we not trust Him enough? do we not believe that He is able?

if we want to live life fully—the life God intended us to live—we must die to our self. we must surrender everything and not hold back anything. we have a choice. God's given us the ability to choose. but remember this, as Christians, the life that we think we own is under the lordship and authority of Christ. this means it's up to Him which destination we arrive at. when we decide to rely on ourselves and go our own way, we insult Him, for we do not believe in who He is—all knowing and all powerful. Jesus says in luke 9:23 [NIV], "if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." it's in our daily act of volitionally surrendering our will, that we find life abundant.

if we could return to our frame-set we once held as children, we would trust our Father to get us to the right destination without all the doubt and questions that we have now. we would be able to jump in the car and trust that the Father knew the best way. and if, for some reason, adjustments (i.e. unexpected turns) had to be made, they'd go by unnoticed. we would think they were just part of the trip. circumstances would not have mastery over us. unexpected life events would not phase us. oh, what joy it would be to be like a child again.

"i tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" - matthew 18:3 [NIV]

Posted by Leo Chan at April 20, 2005 1:28 PM