My wife asked me if I would help my son, Joshua 7 years old, with his "Simple Machines" assignment. I was familiar with the assignment when my daughter was in 2nd grade but honestly in a fleshly way I just wanted to relax on a Sunday afternoon. After looking at his assignment we decided to go to the garage to make a couple of things out of wood. Now I am not exactly a Master craftsmen, when I fix something around the house we all celebrate in amazement. Not having an earthly father who taught me these things I have learned by trial and error (mostly error). We decided to make a doorstop, I fired up my Skill saw to cut the shape and the workbench to hold it in place. Joshua was very interested but also a little apprehensive because dad and tools are not the most common picture. After marking out the shape and then cutting the wood, we had a rough piece of wood. My Skill saw has a dull blade not because of my work but because my brother-in-law (who really uses tools) passed it down to me with I think this same blade. So then it was time to pull out the finishing sander (a fairly benign power tool that could only sand some skin off), I decided this was a good time to introduce my son to the world of wood working power tools. As I showed Joshua the ins and outs of the sander I decided it was his turn, so I had him put his hands on the sander and I put my hands over his. Joshua was a little apprehensive but started to gain confidence as I put confidence in his growing new skill. It was not until later that it struck me that this is how our Abba is with us. When I was hit with this small revelation, it brought up both joy and grief. There were so many days I had wished my dad would do what I was doing with Joshua, yet through this very time with my son there was part of my heart that was getting healed. I couldn't change that my dad hadn't been there for me but I could be the manifestation of God's love to my son and somehow the blessing I was giving was coming back to me. I was amazed as my son got more confident, how he would inspect the piece of wood and see places that needed to be sanded. God is not a distant father but a father like I was in that moment leaning over my son with my hands over his on the sander. It was as if my confidence, knowledge, and understanding (what I have) was passing from me into my son and becoming his. I often have had the frustration of just expecting myself to be able to do something but hiding in shame because I didn't know how, but the truth is I often had not learned. Most good fathers that I know don't expect their kids to know something without being taught and mentored, yet we live in a culture that celebrates the end results but often does not show the process or work behind it. In Psalm 127 it says that children are gift from the Lord and a blessing, I am now beginning to glimpse even more how children can be a blessing. Yet often as parents we get pull toward managing our children, carting them to endless events, correcting them, or just getting frustrated by their misbehavior. As a western culture we do not place a high value on our children: dads often refer to babysitting their own children, we have endless things to entertain them, or they often get plopped in front of the TV. On the contrary these verses in Psalm 127 and the encounter with Jesus and the children in Matthew 18 paint a very different picture in the Kingdom of God. Jesus elevates children before the disciples when they try to stop them from coming to Jesus (the Rabbi), yet he says you must become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God. Becoming like a child means entering into a place of humility, trust, openness, honesty, and simple faith. I believe children are part of Abba's redemptive plan because when we see our sin and bad patterns in our children, it is a way that the Lord seeks to have us humble ourselves and receive His grace so the cycle will be broken. It is often painful to see your child act out your anger, frustration, impatience, or critical tongue on someone else because we know that we have passed that sin to them. But we as parents can also be can be an instrument of God's grace if we will humble ourselves, own our sin, and ask them to forgive us.
Abba's child,
Bret
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