Thursday, September 27, 2012

A lesson I learned by walking with my daughter



A lesson I learned by walking with my daughter

I went for a walk with my daughter recently through our neighborhood and down to the park. At the time of writing this she is almost 16 months old. She’s still learning to balance as she tends to fall down quite a bit, sometimes it’s cute and funny and other times I need to pick her up and let her cry into my shoulder (this may be TMI, but I’m getting quite a bit of snot on my clothes lately). During our walk I observed some things about my daughter, and I assume most kids are the same way. She moves quite slow compared to my long legs, but besides our obvious size difference her slowness comes from stopping every three feet. At this point she doesn’t even understand "going to the park", I know she’s going to love it when we get there, but she’s in her own little world. The destination isn’t even something that crosses her mind, the walk with daddy and all of the things she can pick up are an adventure in and of itself. A leaf, a rock, and even a weed becomes her new found treasure.

Most of the time I let her walk by herself, gently directing her away from potential danger or from playing in someone’s yard. Sometimes I hold her hand, keeping her close by with the freedom to walk on her own. And part of the time I carry her. The walk is really all about her as I delight in my daughter. I am fascinated by her being fascinated by the littlest and seemingly valueless things. I’ve walked this neighborhood many times and never once have I cared about the leaf, rock, weed, or even the random pretty flower. However as a dad, and fairly new to this job description at that, I find myself caring about the things that she cares about. I even bent down a few times to pick leaves and twigs up and hand them to her.  The argument could be made that there are more important things in life than a leaf or a weed, but not right now. In this moment it’s not as much about the things she finds along the sidewalk, for me it’s about her heart, her desires, making her happy.

I can't help but draw comparisons and parallels from this example to our walk with God. I think the biggest take away for me is that God cares about what I care about. He obviously sees the big picture and the destination that he's leading me to, but He's a good father and He enjoys the journey with me even more than I do. The Bible says this in Psalms 37:4 “Delight yourself in The Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Then in Psalm 145:16-19 “You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. I love James 1:17 Where it says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."  Matthew and Luke tell us that evil fathers know how to give good gifts to their children so how much more does our father in heaven give good gifts to us.

The pendulum can swing to some unhealthy extremes, but it’s good for us to know that God really does care about what we care about. This includes the things that make me happy and the things that concern me. We all agree that nothing is too big for God, but it’s also comforting to know that nothing is too small for him either. He actually put desires in us, he gave us emotions, and he loves the journey. As I continue to be fascinated by the things that fascinate my daughter I will let it be a gentle reminder that God thinks about me in the same way.

1 comment:

  1. Good thoughts man! The journey is way more interesting than the destination! Thanks for sharing.

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