I had an interesting conversation recently with my five-year-old grandson. He found a ball in our toys and on it were the words “stress ball”. He brought it to me and asked what it was for. This is how the dialogue went:
Zeke: Grandma, why does this say it is a stress ball?
Me: Well, when people are stressed, they can take that ball and squeeze it in their hand and it’s supposed to help relieve their stress
Zeke: What is stress?
Me: It’s when you have things going on in your life that are causing you to feel anxious
Zeke: What does anxious mean?
Yes, I realized this conversation wasn’t going to go much farther. Researchers have found that curious children ask a staggering 73 questions every day ... half of which parents (and grandparents) struggle to answer. I soon realized that at five years old…Zeke doesn’t have a clue what these words mean, because he hasn’t really experienced much stress or anxiety in his short life. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say that about ourselves?
As I’ve reflected on this exchange with my precious grandson, I’ve thought about his eagerness to learn and his willingness to keep asking questions. He’s not embarrassed if he doesn’t know something…he simply asks. He wants to know who, what, why, when and where concerning just about everything and while it can become exasperating to those who he’s asking…he doesn’t usually give up. Trust me…he is a very persistent young child
What would happen if you and I were more like Zeke? What if we were persistent in wanting to know the who, what, why, when and where about everything in God’s Word? What if we wouldn’t stop until we understood everything He wants us to learn so we can look more and more like Him? I can’t help but believe that if this was how we lived our lives…maybe we wouldn’t know so much about stress and anxiety either. If we could learn to maintain the wonderful and beautiful characteristics and qualities of children…that life in this sinful, chaotic world tends to beat out of us…we might be able to keep the child in us alive. Then maybe, just maybe, we would come to realize and trust in the fact that the One who knows it all…is able to handle far more of our lives than we can even imagine.
And the best part? Our Jesus never tires of hearing our questions. He wants us to share everything with Him and He will never struggle to know the answers. Thankfully, He has much more patience than this grandma does
"And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change
and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3
No comments:
Post a Comment