Little Hakims, Growing in Wisdom, Stature, and Favor with God and with Man

Just now, I was sitting in my chair eating something sloppily. In the interest of preventing self-incrimination, I shall purposely withhold what "something" is. But I was getting nearly as much of "something" on my fingers as I was into my mouth.

Enter the world's most darling drum major. Kessedi floated down the stairs. I'm not sure if it was because she was stepping lightly, or simply because her room-illuminating smile naturally draws the eye away from her feet, but she really seemed to float.

Baton-spoon in hand, she stepped and twirled around the room to music that only she could hear. The soundtrack of her life seems so pleasant and playful that I sincerely hope that she learns to compose later in life. Whatever that music is in her head, it is a treasure that should be shared with the world.

With a little added flourish, she ended a twirl right in front of me and handed me the spoon.

"What are you doing?" I asked with a curious smile.
"Marching!" she announced, as if marching was something she had invented a moment hence.

Remembering my messy fingers, and too lazy to get up myself, I asked, "Could you please go get daddy a napkin?"

Kessedi never does anything without overdoing it (where did she learn that?), so she returned with the entire napkin holder and an even bigger version of the Kessedi grin.

I assumed, of course, that it was affection for her earthly father that had fueled this cheerful, excellent service. But it was something even better.

"Thank you for being such a good helper," I said.
Her entire face beaming, she looked up at me and said, "Being a helper is right."

It was no secret between us that it was pleasant for both of us to have her so gladly help her daddy. But there was a better reason for her to do it. A greater Father for her to please.

This is a lesson that so many "evangelical Christians" just don't get. We hear all about how pleasant various aspects of obedience are, as if we must be convinced of our self-interest in it. Without turning this into a piece about how (very!) spiritually dangerous it is to rely on such reasoning, let me just urge you to learn the lesson that my four year old daughter seems to have begun absorbing: Don't obey just because it is pleasant. Obey

because it is right.

Labels: attitude, Kessedi, obedience

Kessedi loves flowers. We cannot even walk the dog together without frequent flower-picking pit stops. When I found seed packets at the Dollar Tree(R) for 10c ea, I couldn't resist. We purchased seeds for sunflowers, snapdragons, morning glories, zinnias, marigolds and more.

Where we live, the growing season is long--in fact, there are two of them. So the pretty little charts on the back of our flower seed packets indicate that it's planting time.

After taking rakes and hoes to the back bed for a while yesterday, it was more than ready to receive it's near-weightless cargo. It's amazing how much life can be in such a small and seemingly insignificant thing. I had seed planting on the brain, after this morning's preparation of tonight's Prayer Meeting devotional from 1Cor 3:5-9. So there we were, Kessedi and I, poking holes in the dirt, 1/4" deep, 2" apart, depending on the seed type.

As we were placing seeds in the holes, Kessedi asked, "Daddy, is God going to make the seeds grow?" I told her that we would ask Him to send sun and rain and to make them work to make the seeds grow--that He could make them grow all by themselves, but He liked to use sun and rain to do it and that He also liked to do it in answer to our prayers.

She simply answered, "Yeah, He's going to make the flowers grow for Kessedi."

I don't know how much she understood from that about God's absolute sovereignty, how He exercises it graciously, how He uses means, how He is pleased to work through and in response to the prayers of His people. You can join me in praying that God would be pleased to make these truths bear fruit in her heart. Like the Corinthians passage says, I can plant and water, but God has to provide that growth.

When we were almost done with the bed, Emmet came up behind us and was playing, "shoot." "I'm gonna shot you; you need to die, Kessedi!"

Of course I corrected him on the proper use of firearms and verified that outside of the little fantasy game he was playing, that really he loved his sister and would protect her at any cost to himself. But then, as I try to make a habit of doing, I took the conversation to the cross.

Me: "Kessedi actually does need to die and go to Hell, because of her sins. But Who has already died and taken her Hell?"
Kes (beaming): "Jesus!"
Kes (a little more thoughtful): "I don't want to go to Hell when I die. I want to go to Heaven."
Me: "Then trust in Jesus, honey. No one for whom He died will ever go to Hell."

Kes (after several moments of silence, and noticing that I was standing up and brushing off my knees): "What are you doing daddy?"

"Planting seeds."

Labels: evangelism, Kessedi, parenting.

This morning, Emmet afforded me what is one of the highlights of my life to this point.

I had been up, on and off, all night with intestinal issues, so i didn't go to work early, and he ended up waking up before either I or Heather.

He crawled into bed between us and laid down, waiting for us to wake up. That's right. My two year old son was considerate of our desire to sleep longer and decided to wait patiently for us to finish our slumber. Now, that's evidence that he loves me, but it wasn't my life-highlight. He has actually done this before.

He had his back to me, so I gave him a couple pats and a caress on his back, at which point my Heavenly Father granted me one of the most treasured moments of my brief existence. Emmet whispered to heather, "Mommy! Daddy loves me VERY much!"

Emmet has told me that he loves me dozens of times, but hearing his confidence in my love for him was ten times as good.

So, let's learn from Emmet and strive to delight our Heavenly Father. Let's not be satisfied to demonstrate how very much we love Him. Let us be fervent to demonstrate how very much we are

confident that He loves us.

Labels: assurance, Emmet, love