Galatians 4:6, Matthew 6:25-34
My dad is my hero. I’m happy to say that 25 years in, I still see him as a little bit bigger-than-life. When he’s close to me I feel stronger, and when he hugs me, I feel a warmth and caring that seems to heal all wounds and comfort all pains. Like all things, these feelings also come at a price, and with my father, I am completely exposed and completely vulnerable, and for reasons I can’t understand and don’t want to, that is both fully discomforting and fully comforting at the same time. The paradox of my fathers love is among the great mysteries of my life, and I love the mystery of it all, and I love him.
Like many single, post-collegiate wanderers in this new stage of life, I struggle with contentment in God’s direction for my life. By that, what I mean (and most others in my place, I believe) is I’m not married, have no prospects, and don’t know what to do with that reality. Birthdays have a way of really sticking an exclamation point on these feelings, and my 25th was no different. He approached me that morning and knew I was heavy-minded. In tears, I shared my heart with him and shared my feelings of confusion, struggle, and discontent with this part of my life. Dad is very prayer-centric, and before long we were curled up together on the couch, him praying for me and holding me close, and me curled up in his arms. Does that create a funny picture? It does for me. The idea of a full-grown, 25-year old curled up like a little kid in his father’s arms – the image looks silly, but what happened that morning relates very close to the kind of relationship God desires with each of us, no matter how it looks to other people.
I believe God desires to draw each of us close to Him, put His arms around us and tell us how much He loves us. He calls us His children, and desires that we know Him as Abba, which carries a very intimate suggestion of father, or more appropriately, ‘Daddy’. Everything shared in Growing Young will point back to this one reality: that God loves us and cares for us, literally as His children. It’s in His embrace that I realize whatever I know of God’s scriptures or works throughout time fall a distant second to my recognition of His intimate love in my life.
To begin this series, I want to spend a few posts looking at characteristics of our lives as children. God refers to us as children in relation to Himself, and you might be surprised how often aspects of human childhood reflect the character of our Father.
Try to recall your earliest memory as a child. Try to focus yourself on this memory, shutting all else out for a moment. Maybe take some deep breaths and close your eyes. For some of you, this memory involves family settings like a grandmother’s house, or a Christmas morning. For others it might be location or sensation-based, like the beach or mountains, or perhaps the feel of morning light from your bedroom window, or perhaps your mother’s embrace. Can you remember the sounds, the feels, and even the smells? Close your eyes…let that memory soak in. Hang onto it for a moment.
A quiet moment with a memory like this often leaves us with a peace we may not have felt in some time, and has a way of dissolving our present concerns. In that moment we can feel quite free - our current trials and concerns wonderfully forgotten. These feelings are not without reason. Have you ever noticed that our earliest moments of life are lived without the burdens of past or future concerns? As children, we live as we exist - in the present, and because of this we are free. In The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner elaborates on this idea:
“For a child, time, the great circus parade of the past, present, and future, has scarcely started and means little, because for a child all time is by and large ‘now’ and apparently endless. What child, while summer is happening, bothers to think that summer will end? What child, when snow is on the ground, stops to remember that not long ago the ground was snowless? It is by its content rather than its duration that a child knows time, by its quality rather than its quantity.”
Matthew 6 tells us that God knows and responds faithfully to all needs, and our concern should therefore remain in the present. As Buechner illustrates, children have a wonderful ability of embracing this truth. Yet for the rest of us, how often do our ‘present’ concerns have nothing to do with the present at all? I know in my own life, the overwhelming majority of my anxiety, stress, and general faithlessness in God’s plan are directly tied to my dwelling upon past or future events that really have little to no bearing on where I am now and how God is calling me to live now.
The first assessment we each must make is how often our dwellings upon past or future concerns cause us to miss out on the joys Christ offers in the present. Jesus places before us innumerable joys, and He desires us to live with a perspective that allows us to see and experience these joys as He offers them – in the present, in community together.
Over this next while, I encourage you to join me in seeking God’s purpose, presence, and fellowship in the present. Jesus offers us His joy in the calm and frenzied moments alike. What joy does He want you to see today? What about right now?