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Exploring Our World
By Matthew Caskey
“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he asks a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Luke 11:11-13 (KJV)
At forty-five years old I find that when the workday ends and I make my way through the evening traffic, which turns a twenty-five minute drive into an hour or more, I have very little energy left for the things that need doing around the house. These days my idea of a productive evening is getting some dinner and plopping my fat butt on the couch. However, I also happen to be the father of a one-year-old who’s energy level and excitement to see dad is far beyond anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime. His idea of a perfect evening is getting through dinner and then using his newly found legs to explore. So I walk in circles around the house following close behind him to make sure that when he reaches for the fan or the electrical outlets I can calmly cut him off at the pass and give a stern but loving “no – that will hurt you.” As I do this day after day I watch as his wonder grows. He figures out that when he hits the side of the metal stove it makes a different sound than when he smacks the side of the wall. Back and forth stove to wall listening with sheer delight at the new sounds he’s discovered. Looking at the new things he’s picked up on that he seemed to have overlooked the last lap around.
As I watch my son I begin to contemplate if this is how our Heavenly Father sees each of us. Through his will, we’ve found ourselves in this great big world, in a life that we know nothing about and I picture myself wandering through this world exploring anything and everything I can find that tickles my fancy. And I see my God, my Heavenly Father in the form of his own son Jesus, walking in circles behind me. Ever patient. Ever watching so that he can cut me off at the pass and say in a stern but loving voice, “no – that will hurt you.”
Sometimes my own son just refuses to listen to my warnings and he ends up hurt and crying from the pain he’s caused himself. I also sometimes refuse to heed the warning of God and, just like my son, I end up hurting and crying from the pain I’ve caused myself by not listening to the warnings. But each and every time I find that the one constant in my life is that Jesus is right there by my side, telling me, reminding me, what went wrong and saying, “I tell you “no” for a reason.” You see I don’t tell my son no because I want to make him suffer the loss of some grand experience. I tell him no because I want him to miss the pain of that experience. I want him to be happy and healthy and to learn. But sometimes it takes that bad experience for us to learn what is good and what is not so good. To learn what will bring joy and what will bring pain. What will allow love to bloom and what will hinder the growth of love.
God doesn’t tell us no because he is mean or because he wants to see us hurt. And he doesn’t allow us to continue to move forward in spite of his warning because he is some sadistic grumpy old man. Quite the opposite actually God tells us no because he wants to see us healthy and happy in his Spirit. And he allows us to move forward with our mistakes in spite of his warnings because he loves us and wants us to grow. To let us learn for ourselves what is right and good and what is not so good. To see us know what joy is and which experiences will bring pain to ourselves or others. God wants us to understand his perfect love and to allow that love to grow within us by learning to trust in his words. We are his children and he wants nothing but the best for us. But you better believe that he also knows that he has created us with a sense of wonder and he knows that sometimes it takes allowing us to practice our own will before we will understand that we must seek and obey his perfect will for our lives.
So my prayer for myself, and for each of you, is that we will learn to listen to the hastening of our Lord. That we will learn to seek and obey Him over our own fleshly desires and that through this our journey will become one of perfect love for our Father and for each other.
Matt has been a certified Chaplain since early 2017. He now serves as Regional Director for the state of Ohio.