Having kids is a great education. My daughter, our oldest, taught me a doozy at the ripe old age of two. One of the really cute things my little girl did, was get up real close to my face and strain to see her reflection in the glossiness of my eyeball.
“Nora? Nora?” she’d ask until her face lit up in a big toothy smile. She did the same thing when she sees herself in a mirror, or on the window of my truck. But there’s something different about watching her look at herself in my own eye.
It reminds me of Bible passage where God’s children are called the “apple of his eye.” A Hebrew turn-of-phrase, it’s saying the same thing that my little girl discovered on my lap as a toddler. God thinks about us the way I thought about my daughter. He wants us to discover ourselves in Him.
At about the same age, Nora was a prodigious singer. She sang constantly; my favorite was Jesus Loves Me. On occasion, I’d ask my daughter to sing it, and she would respond with a resounding, “NO!” At moments like those, I remember wondering if she would reject Christ and grow up to worship Satan. Then I would take a deep breath, and realize she probably just missed her nap.
When she sang it, boy did she sing it!
She knew all the words, and while she didn’t pronounce them all perfectly, she made up for it with motions. My favorite was when she said “me” in the “yes, Jesus loves me” line. She would jab her thumbs into her chest with vigor.
It was super cute, and I can’t stop from theologizing it.
At what age do we forget that Jesus really does love me? When do we start believing our performance is our salvation? What happened to the good old days, when we believed Jesus loved us intensely, when we knew we could find ourselves in His eyes?
Before I put my daughter to bed, we always sat down in a comfy chair and had some milk. She juggled her bunny and blanket as I handed the milk to her, and she reclined back on my chest. Right before her milk ran out, I suggested we hold hands, and she obliged. However, when we held hands in our family, she took it as a cue to pray. She looked up at me with her big, blue eyes and petitioned me.
“Pray?” she asked.
“Yeah, we can pray,” I said. “Why don’t you pray?”
She bowed her head, but kept her eyes open. I kept my eyes open, too. I wanted to see what she would do.
“Dear Jesus,” she said in language only discernible to people who live with her. “Thank you for food, thank you for hugs, thank you for daddy, thank you for mommy, thank you for Nora, thank you for milk (she held up her milk like a prized trophy given to her straight from heaven). AMEN!”
I wondered at the faith of my little girl, and at my own arrogance to think that I could actually teach her something about life and faith, when she already has it all figured out.
Jesus said let the children come to me.
I think it was so that He could finally have someone near him who didn’t approach him like a riddle to figure out. I think He wanted to sit one of those toddlers on His knee, and let them find themselves in his eyes, give them a big hug, and maybe say a little prayer.
May we all pray for Nora-like faith that puts us smack-dab in the lap of Jesus.
