About Me

My photo
I have a beautiful wife, an infant son & a schnauzer. viva la tex-mex. Words that describe or excite: Missional, Glocal, Lead, Innovate, Initiate, Create, Risk, Community

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

On Being a Dad: 01.28.09 : Perspective



It's always about perspective isn't it?  Well maybe the answer to that question depends on your perspective.  As a father of an active 2 year old warrior for Jesus, mommy loving, Tigger emulating bouncing boy I am often floored by what God teaches me through him.  Today as he often does, Elijah begged me to let him turn on the lights.  Now to be more specific anytime we are in one of the bedrooms or the living room and I pick Elijah up he wants to pull the 2 chords dangling from the ceiling fan.  I will pick him up and suddenly this new height perspective (those that know me are inserting short jokes at this very moment) causes a flood of new desires and goals to enter into Elijah's lexicon of activities.

No longer is he content to just play with his big block lego's, Noah's ark, or Hotwheels.  He wants to "tuwn on lights, daddy, tuwn on lights!"  Or he wants to reach for something previously hidden from his view that sits atop the entertainment center.  He wants to reach for, take hold, or engage in activities that previously were not at his disposal and not even on his radar as an option for consideration.

I realize me taking him in my arms and lifting him up is just like my time spent with God.  Often times I am just down here minding my own business or other times I cry out to Jesus to lift me up but either way I am down in my limit perspective. Left on my own I am incredibly short-sighted, easily amused (at least for a little while) and really just living in a childish, limited reality.  It is those times that God my Father lifts me up to be apart of something bigger, deeper, more meaningful that my perspective is changed, even shattered and I realize the incrible and wonderous opportunities that open up when I join God and am allowed to see from his perspective.  These times also make me feel small, they show me that I have been "too easily amused, too easily satisfied, and sometimes too willing to settle, give-in, or give-up."

It took looking at things from my 2 years old limited perspective for God to remind me of my limited, short-sighted perspective.  Sometimes life is a mess all around me but if I would just lift my voice up to God, cry out to Jesus to pick me up and help me see things from His vantage point my whole life and my whole world change in those moments.  Come to Him with the faith of little child but stay for the grown-up perspective.

God's kingdom is like a mustard seed.  His ways are higher than my ways, higher as in they blow mine out of the water and they blow my mind.  His thoughts are not my thoughts, compared to the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe I can comprehend God's thoughts and actions about as well a as a 2 year old can comprehend the danger and wonder and power of the electricity courseing through the unseen wires that come to the ceiling fan of the chords he want to pull. But man is that power there doing its job and wow what an impact it would make if he got ahold of it somehow by accident.  From God, the Father of Lights, comes every good and perfect gift and in Him there is no darkness, no shadow, only pure unadulterated light.  How majestic? How awesome.

That is why He is God and that is why though I can not comprehend it all and I know like sticking my finger in light socket--IT"S GONNA JACK ME UP!  I want more of God's perspective and less of the lowdown, short-sighted, limited-eye view that I get when left to my own.  It took my 2 year old to remind me of that tonight.  Come on God, lift me up out of this and show me what I am missing! That is my prayer. Jack my jaw for Jesus! 

No comments: