The Real Test

Are you smart enough to talk about God with a preschooler?

I happen to have many friends and acquaintances who are interested in apologetics (being able to explain the Christian faith). We are an interesting crew, ranging from folks with highly advanced Ph.D’s to schmoes like me, and we are keen on being able to put our faith into words. We want people to understand that belief in God and His Son, Jesus Christ, is not a blind leap into an uninformed, unintelligent abyss, but a reasonable belief grounded in reason and evidence.

This desire for understanding puts us in the path of people who don’t always agree with our view of the world. In fact, many apologists actually seek out those with the toughest questions, the most skeptical of the skeptics. They do this not as a fool’s errand, but as an act of worship and charity; worship, because they want to tell of their glorious God, and charity, because they want their skeptical friends to hear the truth of the Gospel. And it is exactly encounters like those that keeps my apologist friends forever reading, researching, writing, honing their understanding of God’s universe and will.

We seek, to the best of our ability, to make God known.

All of this is well and good, but if we’re not careful we can get into a rut. To put it plainly, we cheat. We tend to think that the deep questions of the faith come from mature minds, from people who are able to critically assess the universe in which they live. So we build our answers around that presumption, importing large words and sophisticated sounding terms that are meant to impart wisdom as well as create the impression that we know of which we speak. We arm ourselves for adults and feel like we have things mastered.

But have you ever tried apologetics with a not-quite-four year old?

Now THAT is a test. Perhaps the real test of whether or not you truly understand what you believe.

Because a four year old doesn’t have the intellectual or moral hang ups of an adult. They don’t have the baggage of past sins, the experience of past hurts, or any other number of objections that make faith in God difficult. A four year old is just the opposite: so gloriously free of preconceptions that their questions are truly a search for knowledge.

You don’t think about this when you’re doing apologetics with adults. You assume there’s a knowledge base of some sort, and you go from there. With kids, it’s a blank page. And it’s hard. You never realize just how silly you can sound until you try out a fancy apologetic argument on a preschooler.

It sounds about as stupid as trying to explain superheroes. In your mind it all makes sense, but you can see on the kid’s face that what you’re selling, they ain’t buying.

And when a kid doesn’t get a concept, when they truly don’t understand – but want to – they ask the question that every parent dreads hearing, but every apologist thinks they’re prepared for: why?

Why can’t we see God?

Why does God live in heaven?

Why did Jesus have to die?

Why is there sin?

Why did my grandmother get sick?

Why do some people get baptized?

Why do you pray?

Why do some prayers not get answered?

Not all of a preschoolers questions are whys, though. You get a lot of interesting whats as well: what will heaven look like? What does Jesus do all day? What if God has stinky feet? What happens if we don’t love God?

And don’t forget the wheres, whens and hows.

It is astounding how quickly the philosophy in your head falls apart in a four year old’s hands, how guilty you can be of not thinking deeply enough so a preschooler can understand.

When Jesus said it takes the faith of a child to come to God, I don’t think he meant simple-minded in the sense we think of. I think he meant it in the sense that a child seeks genuine answers with genuine awe. As adults, we just seek answers that will shut somebody up, end the argument, get us through the day. It’s a utilitarian belief rather than a sincere one. That’s a broad statement to make, but I don’t think it’s unfair.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because both of my children have been asking some profound questions, but especially my son. He wants so badly to understand things that he can turn a five minute car ride into an interrogatory hell. He asks a million questions, often repeating the same ones, not because he’s not listening, but precisely because he is. And it pushes me to constantly reframe my answers, to drill down, distill, cut away the fluff that adults will allow until I get to the meat that he’s craving.

I’lll stand on a stage and face an audience full of adults any day. And they’ll probably think I’m smarter than my son does.

So for all you apologists out there who think you have the answers down pat, may I issue you a helpful challenge, one meant to hone your own thinking and help make you sharper for the adults you face?

Sometime in the next month or so, volunteer to teach your church’s preschool class, or give the children’s church sermon.

You’ll be amazed at how much the kids can teach you.

Because I’m a Nerd, That’s Why

I’m anxiously awaiting May 3. Not because my son’s birthday is May 1. Not because it will be the first of many glorious summer weekends here in Georgia. Not because I’ll be that much closer to having my babies home for the summer. No, I’m looking forward to May 3 because that’s the official release date for Iron Man 3, the anticipated summer blockbuster starring Robert Downey Jr.

I am, you see, a nerd.

I’m not a hardcore nerd – I don’t excel at the stereotypical nerd things that most people associate with nerd-dom. I would be laughed off of The Big Bang Theory. I would be run out of most comic conventions. I will never pass the official entrance exam for Star Fleet. Heck, I can’t even rattle off half of the characters from the Mos Isley cantina.

But I’m still a nerd.

I like intelligent people. I prefer in-depth conversations on topics of interest to shallow patter meant to make people feel at ease. I would rather debate the merits of what makes a superhero super than the ins and outs of Cypriot banking systems. If you offered me a choice between seeing all of the Marvel hero movies back-to-back-to-back or all of the DC hero movies back-to-back-to-back or the entire first season of Downton Abbey back-to-back-to-back, I’d take three hours debating between DC and Marvel. The Abbey would never enter the equation.

My children are following in my footsteps to a degree. Ella would just as soon watch a superhero cartoon as a Disney princess movie. Jon loves making his Avengers figures battle in the bathtub. And both he and Ella both got into the Cartoon Network series, Young Justice: Invasion. [SPOILER ALERT] Ella even went to the next level of fandom by writing this note of sorrow over the death of Kid Flash in the season finale.

All of this is to say that I’m okay with my nerdness. Not that it’s ever really been an issue for me (okay, maybe at times during high school and college), but as I get older and my nerdiness continues to change, I find that I’m more and more at ease with that side of my personality. Sure, I’ll get into a good theological debate with the best of them, and I love reading about philosophy and other fascinating topics, but just be forewarned that I might drop the Joker into a conversation as a legitimate example of nihilism, or Spider-Man as an example of the power of laughter.

I could go on, but I’m losing focus and my son needs a bath. So I’ll just end it with this meme I created the other day as a way of feeling better about myself. Maybe it will make you feel better about yourself too.

The Birthday Princess

Today is Ella’s seventh birthday, and we’ve been celebrating since this morning. She’s enjoyed some special treats throughout the day, and expects even more this weekend at her birthday party. I guess you could say we spoil her.

But we don’t see it that way.

We’re celebrating her life, which is something we don’t take for granted. Believe me when I tell you that there’s nothing on this earth that makes my heart swell like her slipping her hand into mine as we walk. Sure, the hand that’s reaching out for me has gotten bigger than I’d like to admit, and yeah, my heart breaks to think that I might only have a few more years of such unfettered, un-self-conscious love to enjoy, but it’s still overwhelming to be loved so innocently.

*****

Sometimes when I look at her, I find it hard to remember what she was like as an infant. She’s so much more herself now that’s she’s older that those early months/years seem a blur. To watch her float around the house, dancing to music only she can hear, making up words to songs that only she understands, is to watch my daughter without a filter. To see her as she really is, all the way down to her soul.

When she sits down to draw a picture now, a clear figure emerges – complete with perspective, shading, detail – and fits within a larger narrative picture. She tells you the whole story when she shows it to you, and even gives you a hint of character voices. It’s impressive.

She still sleeps like a wild animal. She’s all over the bed, arms and legs akimbo beneath the covers, breathing so deeply you would think her near comatose. Trying to wake her up on a school day is sometimes like arguing on the internet: pointless and not very productive. Then, on days when she doesn’t need to sleep late, she’s up by 6:20 and racing through the house like a deranged cat.

Talking to her has become an adventure. It’s a combination of her high-level reading skills, ever-listening ear, and decidedly animated friends that produces the first grade equivalent of a Robin Williams stand up, which is to say that she’s hysterical and full of non-sequiturs. What’s really funny is when she throws in an inflection that quite obviously came from someone else – an adult, one of her school friends, her mother – and it sounds like an entirely different person but still fully Ella. And the best part is, she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.

*****

She looked at me this morning in the car. We were waiting for her bus to arrive, and she had this funny expression, a mix between sheer joy and hopeless confusion. Finally she looked at me, eyebrow raised and said, “You know I’m only three years away from ten, don’t you? Today I’m seven, then eight, nine, ten. I’ll be practically grown up. And then I’ll be a teenager. You can handle that, right?”

I looked at her and lied. “Sure I can handle that.”

But my heart knew it couldn’t. As much joy as there is in watching my child grow up, I can’t help but feel the tinge of sadness that comes as she passes ever farther away from the little girl she once was. I know I still have a lot more time with her before she starts hating my guts, but the weight of those days, the preciousness of them, makes me wish they could linger a bit.

And then she drops something on the floor, or accidentally spills grape juice on the freshly cleaned carpet and I wonder, “How long ’til college?”

*****

The birthday princess is growing up. The world is slowly becoming hers; I find that instead of her encountering things through my eyes or Rachel’s eyes, she’s seeing things through her own eyes more and more. And it’s a fascinating world to view, even if it sometimes gets a bit myopic (“When can I have a snack again? You said fifteen minutes fifteen minutes ago. It’s been fifteen minutes. So I can have a snack now, right? Because it’s been fifteen minutes. It has. Really. Why is your eyeball suddenly bleeding, daddy?”). Here’s to enjoying the ride through her childhood, to infinity and beyond.

Happy birthday, Princess Ella! Your mommy and daddy love you very much.

Does Every Life Have a Purpose?

I pray a lot over my kids. I pray for their salvation. I pray for them to be healthy. I pray for them to find the right spouse. I pray for them to be safe, be strong, be smart, be kind. But perhaps more than anything, I pray for them to discover and own their purpose for living.

It’s not exactly an uncommon prayer – I can think of other parents who pray the same thing for their children – but it’s an uncommonly strong desire of mine that they find themselves sooner rather than later. I don’t want them walking vacantly through their lives, wondering what they’re meant to do, only coming to discover their purpose and passion at a late age when changing their lives to accomodate their purpose is hard. I say that from experience. I pray for them out of that experience.

But sometimes, if I’m honest with myself, I wonder if every life has a purpose. If everyone is meant to do something with the time they have on earth. I’ve grown up hearing that each life does have a purpose; I’ve made it a point to study the Scriptures that reveal that purpose; I’ve spent hours exhorting people to find that purpose and fulfill their God-given reason for being. And yet still I occasionally wonder: does every life really have a purpose?

If the answer is no, then my prayers for my kids is a bit vain. in fact, if the answer is no, then my life is possibly vain – after all, who’s to say that what I’ve discovered as my purpose isn’t really just my feeble attempt to give meaning to life that’s ultimately meaningless? That my purpose isn’t just me manufacturing something to give my life direction so I could feel as grounded as those people who actually do have a purpose?

This sounds stupid. I know. But I’m getting somewhere with it. Just hold on.

In the end, thinking about whether life is meaningless or meaningful isn’t really a question. I believe, and am backed by Scripture, that each life has a purpose. The ancient Christians believed this too, and built it into the first question of the Westminster Catechism:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

We exist to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s our purpose. Each and every person is meant – created – so God would be glorified. That’s an awesome thought.

And it’s part of what I’m praying for my kids. That they’ll learn who they are in Christ, learn those things about themselves that makes them unique among his creation, and learn how to bring glory to God by being the fullest expression of themselves. Or to be more concrete: that my kids would find those things that they are good at, excel at those things, and bring God glory through the effort.

Jon loves to build. Ella loves to sing. Jon loves playing games and solving puzzles. Ella loves creating imaginary worlds with words and illustrations. Might those interests fall by the wayside as they grow up? Certainly. But they might also be the very things that God gifted them to do in this life, things that – in their doing – will bring God glory that no other person can bring Him.

Does that mean they’ll be famous? No.

But it means they’ll be fulfilled. Which is what I’m really praying for anyway. It’s what I want for my life, and for anyone who walks the face of the earth: to be fulfilled by being who God made them to be. Fathers, poets, politicians, teachers, firemen, soldiers, chefs, nurses, trainers, managers, pilots, preachers, singers, servers, and saints – plus every person in between. All living their lives to the fullest to bring glory to God. 

Does it mean they’ll never encounter hardship or heartache? No.

But it means that when they are tested, they’ll remember in the correct context that God works things out for our good (Romans 8:28), that He uses our life circumstances to help us achieve our purpose – bringing Him glory. See, we tend to take the glory for ourselves, even when we’re well-intentioned. Humility suffers at the hand of prosperity, and life has this way of bringing us back down too earth. It’s unpleasant to say, but all too often God only gets glory when we cannot have it for ourselves. We have to be reminded, sometimes frequently, that the glory belongs to Him alone.

So I pray for my kids. That they’ll learn these lessons early. That they’ll approach life humbly, and with great appreciation for the blessings that carry them each day. I pray that they’ll learn from my life that chasing after God may entail heartache and trial, but it will always produce God’s glory and our greatest joy.

And in typing that, I think I understand why I came to my purpose so late: in order to show my children what it means to live that way.

To God be the glory.

My Daughter’s Valentine

For the past couple of days my daughter, Ella, has been on a covert mission. She’s pulled her mother aside for numerous private conversations, whispered into her brother’s ear countless times, and just been furtive in general. Finally, last night, she filled me in on the CIA-level spywork.

“Daddy, this year, I’m giving you a Valentine’s Surprise.”

My heart felt a little tug. My baby girl wants to give me a Valentine? Sweet.

“So I need a dollar from you tomorrow. Do you have a dollar, Daddy?”

So much for sweet.

“Uh, sure, Ella. I can give you a dollar. No problem.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Ok. Great, daddy! Thank you.”

And with that, she skipped off to her room. I was left to marvel at what I’ve done right as a dad to inspire such a kind gesture from my daughter. Sure, we went to the Daddy-Daughter Date Night thing that Chick-fil-A put on (and she still badgers me about the unfinished Daddy-Daughter Conversation Book we received that night); and next week, we’ll tip-toe across the gym floor at her school under the balloon-festooned banners of the Daddy-Daughter Dance (which we attended last year and I got dumped by my daughter less than 5 minutes in). But I’m thinking there has to be more.

Is it the fact that I hug her whenever I get a chance because I want her to know I love her? Is it because I constantly make up funny stories (usually involving flatulence) at her request? Is it because I find her fascinating, with her creativity and kind heartedness being a combination I’ve never seen before?

Maybe it’s because I love her mother so desperately, and tell her all the time that she’s a mini-Mommy. Or because I allow her and Jon (her brother, my son) to tackle and wrestle with me on the floor.

Or is it because I wake her up each day and get her ready for school?

Because I answer her non-stop questions?

Because I allow her to have dance parties where we just boogie down as a family?

What inspires such love in a little one? I could spend all day trying to justify why she loves me. But in the end, there’s only one answer, and it’s as mysterious as it is satisfying.

She loves me because she loves me.

There are a thousand different variables that go into that truth, but at the end of the day, my daughter chooses – out of the great well of love and compassion and kindness in her heart – to love me, flaws and all. I haven’t earned it. I haven’t deserved it. She just freely gives it.

And it’s awesome.

This morning, she asked me about the dollar again. I thought I was off the hook because her Nonna (my mom) gave her a dollar last night to help fund her Valentine’s Surprise. So when Ella came to me this morning and said, “Daddy? I need another dollar,” I instinctively reached for my wallet.

She stopped me.

“No, Daddy,” she said. “I need you to get a dollar from my piggy bank.”

“But I can just give you a dollar, Ella. It’d be easier.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “No. I want to spend my money. Besides, I have lots of dollars in my piggy bank!”

I was floored. I sometimes wonder if I spoil my children too much; we sacrifice around our house, but we don’t make huge deal out of it. Sometimes, I worry that by not drawing attention to the idea of giving, I make things to easy for them, make them feel entitled. But there she was, wanting to spend her own money to purchase a gift she didn’t really have to buy, but wanted to as an expression of love. I thought about King David’s line on sacrifices that cost nothing.

So I did the only honorable thing: I ripped the bottom off her piggy bank and fished out a dollar. She smiled and took it in her little hands and said, “Thanks, Daddy. I love you.”

She was still holding her two dollars as we waited for her bus to come. I gently took the money and put it in a pouch on her backpack. She approved. (“Good idea, Daddy. I might drop it because I can be a bit spacey sometimes.”) We sat there in my car and she reached over and patted my hand.

When the bus turned onto our street, we got out of the car and Ella said, “Daddy! Real quick: what’s your favorite smell?”

“My favorite smell?”

“Yeah. Only it has to be something like a fruit: orange, cherry, banana. Quick! Pick one.”

“Okay,” I said as the pulled pulled to a stop and I handed her her backpack. “I pick orange.”

She stopped and looked at me. “Seriously? Orange?”

“Yes. I choose orange.”

She rolled her eyes and started up the bus steps. “Orange? Who wants an Orange Smencil?”

The bus doors closed and she was gone, but my Valentine’s Surprise had been unintentionally revealed: sometime this afternoon, I will be the proud recipient of an Orange scented pencil, a pencil that she will inevitably claim as her own. But she will have bought it with her own money, of her own volition, as a way of telling me what her words and hugs and life tell me every day: she loves me.

And I love her right back. More than she’ll ever know.