Eye Spy

Some of my greatest lessons on faith have come from my children.  They amaze me with their humble and accepting faith.  In Matthew 18; 3-4, Jesus speaks of the faith of a child.  He says that, "anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven."

Each night, before bed time, we say our prayers together as a family.  Noah, our little General, likes to control whose turn it is.  Last night, when it was Noah's turn, his prayer was simply, "Jesus, ya wanna play Eye Spy?"  Cute, huh?  Eye spy is a big deal to Noah and Aiden right now.  Our trips are consumed with whose turn it is, to pick what color, so this genuine request to Jesus got me thinking about my relationship with Jesus.

Here are a few things that we can all learn from Noah's simple request.

1.  Noah knows Jesus is real.  He is as real to Noah as Steve and I are.  To him he's just someone else Noah spends his day with and plays games with.
2.  Whatever is important in Noah's life right now, and Eye Spy is important, it is also important to Jesus.  He knew that Jesus would be interested in playing with him.  Our needs don't have to be huge.  Jesus cares about them all.
3.  That Jesus was right there next to Noah.  He's always there, even when we aren't paying attention.  Noah didn't have to go seek him out to ask, he just asked. 
4.  That a relationship with him isn't about doing or following rules, it's about loving him and simply enjoying being in his presence.  Noah must have a comfortable relationship with him because he would never ask a stranger to play Eye Spy.
5. That Jesus wants us to let him share in all of our life, not just the hard parts, when we are fully aware that we can't handle things on our own, but he wants to share in the things that bring us pleasure, even a simple game of Eye Spy.   He also wants us to take pleasure in him.
5.  That Jesus can reveal himself to us even in the simpliest ways, so keep your heart open.

When we play Eye Spy, Steve and I always laugh when it's Noah's turn because he likes to control the game.  Not only does he spy a color but he also will give the answer before anyone has a chance to guess.  I wonder if he tried to control the game with Jesus?  The one thing I know for sure is that Jesus answered him, "yes, I want to play Eye Spy with you."  Jesus, wants a relationship with all of us, he wants to share our good, our bad, and our fun.  If it's important to us, it's important to him.

Little Ears

I am quite comfortable with who I am.  I'm also quite familiar with all my flaws that constantly need work.  One of them is being overly direct.  You see, I never thought I was direct until people started using that word to describe me.  This weekend, I had to do some back peddling because my directness affected my son, Aiden.

We were at a salon getting his hair cut when the young lady turned him around and said, "he has a gap in the front of his hair, what should I do with it?"  I knew he didn't have that gap when we came in so, I asked Aiden, "have you cut your own hair?", knowing full well he didn't.  I told her to blend it the best she could.  Oh boy, she cut his bangs completely off!  This is when I went into "no filter mode".  I told her to stop because she was making it worse, she would not be touching his hair anymore, and to get someone over to fix it.  Oh boy!  I was right to stop her. . . it really was that bad, but poor little Aiden was now left feeling like his hair looked bad.  I could see it all over his face and it broke my heart.

I went into damage control.  Once it was fixed, I told him how handsome it looked and that in a couple weeks, it would grow out.  It was this morning when I realized he was okay with it.  He styled it differently and was very proud of the new style. 

Lesson learned, I have to be more conscientious of little ears.  Sometimes being direct is good, sometimes a gentler approach is necessary.   God is always working on me and what better way to prove a point than with these sweet boys.

By the way. . .he is still a very handsome little fella!