It’s His Job

Jack is changing so much every day. Since his surgery, he is constantly more mobile and verbal. He pulls up, stands up and even walked with his little walker yesterday! He has really started to communicate with us using some basic sign language and has even started trying to say more difficult words. It’s been a blast to watch him grow so much since he got the tubes put in. But he’s still a baby... and no matter how fast he crawls and how good he’s getting at walking, when he sees Christy or me, he drops down on that bottom, throws his arms out wide and starts fussing with that old, familiar baby grunt. He’s no where near as fussy as he was even a couple weeks ago, but he still has some of those baby-ish traits.

When he’s hungry, he looks at us and cries as if to say, “Hey, you two! I’m hungry! Do something about it!” When he’s in pain, he stops everything, locates us with his eyes, throws those arms up and cries as if to say, “Hey! Get over here and make it all better!” When he crawls himself into a corner and can’t find the way out, he cries for us. When he loses his pacifier in the middle of the night and can’t see it, he cries out for us. When one of his sisters takes something away from him, he looks at us and cries. Sometimes when I simply walk in the room he throws his arms out and cries... he just wants to be held and loved on! This guy is growing everyday, but he still has the whole baby thing down, and he treats us as if it’s our job to make all of his problems go away... which, it pretty much is.

the other day I was reading Mark 10 where Jesus’ disciples decide to bounce the parents who were bringing their little kids to Jesus. In their opinion, Jesus had more important stuff to do than mess with little kids, but Mark says that this made Jesus upset. In fact, it’s one of the very few times the Scriptures explicitly say He was angry. Sometimes we assume He was... like when He turned the tables over at the temple, (it never says He was angry on that particular occasion) but this case is different. Here we know for a fact that this made Him mad.

“People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.”

The thing that really gets me about this passage is that when Luke records the same scene, he says people were bringing their infants to Jesus. The disciples were trying to keep babies away from Jesus, but Jesus insisted they be brought because there are things about the kingdom of God that babies understand even though the rest of us have forgotten, and unless you are like a baby, you don’t even get it... but what is it? When was the last time you crawled yourself into a corner with no way out and threw your hands up in the air and begged God to help you? when was the last time you cried out to Him because you were hurting, confused and helpless? When was the last time that you flung yourself upon Him in desperation as if it were His job to clean up all your messes and give you all you need or to simply hold you? I think Jack understands that. This is what it means to know Him... It is His job. He’s your Dad. Fling those arms open! Cry out! He’s waiting...