Lessons from a Little One

Last week Marcia and I visited our first grandchild and his parents. Joshua Conrad DeRuiter is about a month old and doing very well.

Joshua Conrad DeRuiter

Of course it was wonderful meeting him, taking care of him and being with his parents, Jon and Laura in West Olive, Michigan. We convinced them to leave a couple of times so we could have grandparent time with just him (they thought we were being altruistic). Most of the time we had with him was marvelous and amazing.

And Then Again...

Little ones come to young parents for a reason, I think. They aren't all coos and wonder. Sometimes they have needs, or wants, or discomforts, or hurts, or combinations of the above and you're not sure what to do. Infants aren't very good at taking other people's needs into consideration either; they're high maintenance creatures.

Jon and I both reflected on this, as pastors/preachers (my son Jon is also an ordained minister in the CRC). The little guy sometimes knows he needs something, but he's not even sure what it is he needs, or what will take care of that need. In fact, sometimes he gets so upset that he will reject the thing will actually take care of the need (feeding or sleep) - though with some insistence he'll eventually calm down enough to give it a try.

Typical.

How often do we do the same?

Joshua is older and more mature in relation to his father and grandfather--by percentage--than we are in relation to the Everlasting God. Think about it. How old is God compared to us? How much more does He know, by experience alone! Yet we think we know our needs and how to meet them, or just as arrogantly: how God should meet them. And when God gives us what we actually do need, how often do we slap it out of His loving hand as irrelevant?

I don't mean that we should accept everything that comes our way. No! Some things come to us from our and God's enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. If it comes to steal, kill or destroy, it comes from the thief (John 10:10) and we should resist it with all we have (even though God can turn every one of those attacks to our advantage - Rom. 8:28).

However, sometimes an opportunity comes our way, or a friend, or a spiritual gift, or something else that seems to come unexpectedly and in a season when we're asking God to help us through some struggle. At first glance we might pass over what comes because it doesn't seem relevant to what God is doing, or what we want and are asking Him to do. Yet, it comes as God's gift to meet the actual need of our heart.

I don't know about you, but sometimes, just like little Joshua, I'm not sure what I need. I think about it and decide what I need is a new job, or a certain spiritual gift, or someone to co-write songs with. What He gives doesn't seem (at first) to fit: I get changed, He changes my thinking and experience with spiritual gifts and He builds a worship band that takes what I write to a whole other level.

I know. I know. We can get good things or opportunities for them, that are actually distractions from God's actual calling on us (in fact, they come all the time). It sometimes takes careful discernment (usually in the context of community) to know what is from God and what isn't. On the other hand, when skepticism (or unexamined optimism) begins to substitute for discernment, we get into trouble: we reject a genuine gift from God, or accept what God isn't giving in exchange for what He has given, or is giving.

Returning to Trust

At some point, even when we know we cannot be 100% certain about how well we discern, we have to trust our Father in heaven. He knows our imperfections; He knows we sometimes miss it; He knows us and yet He gives knowing what we need. He knows what we need before we even ask (Matthew 6:8). He knows our hearts and the actual needs of our hearts, even if we, like little Joshua, don't know how to express those needs, or even get it wrong! Joshua has no word for pain or tummy, so if he has gas pains he just cries (very loudly!). We may not know that the need of our heart is for intimacy with Him, and so we cry out for recognition by our peers. We may not know that the need of our heart is to be genuinely loved in the community of God's people, and so we cry out for the sort of companionship (or whatever) that can never satisfy.

At some point, we need to cry out in faith, and then wait in faith for God's response. When we need to cry out, we need to cry out trusting that a loving, responsive and all-powerful Father is listening. A "cry-baby" might cry out to manipulate his/her parents, and there are those who would cry out to God that way. That's dumb. You can't put God on a guilt trip; He never goes down that road. But we don't need to manipulate an all-powerful Father Who is both loving and responsive. He will meet the need of our heart, even if we don't know what it is, or if we get it wrong. That's what God is like.

Unlike human parents (and grandparents), God doesn't need to guess and use trial and error to figure out how to meet our needs. He knows our hearts. He knows them better than we do. And He knows how to meet those needs.

Do you believe that?