I sit in Chik-fil-a, trying to coax my skinny three year old into eating the nuggets and waffle fries. She frowns in the direction of the play area, sullen at the deal I’ve struck. Two nuggets and two fries and then you can play. I honestly don’t know why my kids won’t eat. It’s not that I don’t try.
While we sit and pout, I hear two men sit down in the booth behind us. It doesn’t take me long to overhear their conversation. The first man mm-hmms as the second lays bare his wants and needs. He has just recently left a church and now he is listing his likes and dislikes of the new church he’s attending. On and on he talks, the first man continually mm-hmming. M-hm. M-hm. The m-hmer is obviously a minister of the new church. Perhaps the outreach guy or the discipleship pastor. They must have secured their first meeting at Chik-fil-a to sort out their potential relationship. Finally the second man finishes his rant, his voice trailing off and upward, posing a question to the minister. “So, what can your church offer someone like me?”
I put my little girl’s uneaten nuggets and fries in their greasy box, wrap it in a napkin, and stand up. I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, and I’ve lost my enthusiasm to force feed the preschooler.
“Okay, baby, let’s go play,” I said, and we walk away, the negotiations fading behind our back.
Everyday I walk to school to pick my children up at 2:30. Without fail, three boys come running down the stairs to the field where I wait. They are not my kids. In fact, I only know them by their first names. They are latchkey kids headed home to an empty house, an afternoon of video games and whatever snacks they can find in the cupboard. But before they run home, they first run to me to say hello. I love it. While I’m waiting for my own kids, I ask these boys how their school day was, what they’re up to, what they had for lunch. I ask if they have a pair of boots at home, since there is snow on the ground. They order the excitable puppy on my leash to sit and stay, and then give her pats and tell her she’s a good girl.
Eventually my own boys run down to meet me and we form one big group. We amble through the park, breaking off one by one to go to our own homes.
Because nothing else is pressing, I’ve made it my business to be just a mom, one who asks questions and calls them by name. I mother the temporarily motherless for a few minutes after school. I remind them to not dawdle on their way to Boys and Girls Club, to tie their shoelaces so they won’t trip. It’s a standard fare sort of bossing. And, as if by magic, more kids keep joining our group. One snowy afternoon, I showed up with a carrot in my pocket in case the kids wanted to build a snowman. You’d have thought I’d brought a bucket of candy.
I once read somewhere that a parent’s job is to study their children. I think this is valuable advice since Jesus said we must become like children if we want to be a part of his kingdom. Little kids, I’ve found, have a few things in common. They love the attention, protection, and safety of responsible grown ups. They are honest, shameless, and uninhibited. They’re curious and ask questions. They expect honest answers. They freely express emotion–joy, sadness, anger.
They’re actually much easier to be around than adults. With kids, you can tell them no followed by “because I said so.” You can hold up their emotions to the light and say, “I know you’re sad right now–maybe you’re just hungry.”
You can sit on the couch, open a storybook, and they will naturally come sit around you, eager to see the pictures on the pages.
Before they grow up too much, kids are simple and profound. Now this is good, and it paints a picture of how our relationship is to be with the Father, purely dependent, eagerly expressing our needs, wants, opinions. As new believers, we are to be nourished by milk. It’s a picture of our infancy, our reliance on our caregiver as we begin to cut our baby teeth. This idea of milk is referenced three times in the New Testament.
Peter wrote to believers,
…Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation…
1 Peter 2:2
Paul said to the Corinthian church:
I could not speak to you as spiritual men but as men of flesh, babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
We all begin growing with milk, but it’s obvious we are also to mature into adults that can be given solid food to chew on.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14
This is what I was pondering as I followed my three year old to the play place in Chik-fil-a. By this time you ought to be teachers, the writer of Hebrews said, but you’re still drinking milk because you are spiritual babies.
How did the wonder and excitement leave this man in the booth behind us? Why was he satisfied with milk–just wanting a bigger bottle? When did relationship and pursuit of the Savior become a negotiation of what church can offer? Our generation has coined the word adulting and spewed hate over it, as if grownups ought not carry any responsibilities. I wonder if the man at Chik-fil-a was a kid once that had to walk himself home after school. Did he ever have to feed himself or finish his homework on his own? Had he forgotten about it? Was he reverting back to babyhood, still a little fleshy bundle worried about his own desires? All I heard from his mouth was discontent; he threw a Chik-fil-a pity party. He was looking for someone new to serve his needs. He’d either forgotten he was a grownup or he’d grown accustomed to the baby bottle.
As a mom, I’m uniquely aware of how much kids long to be in the presence of their parents. They love being loved. They don’t cry and fuss when they are well-fed, well-rested, and enjoying the attention of their big person.
That’s exactly how God wants us to approach Him. He wants us to be like the kids that come running down the steps after school, just looking forward to seeing Him waiting on the field. Interaction and relationship with someone who cares. Anticipation in his Word and for the future. What surprise does He have waiting for us?
I don’t know about the guys at Chik-fil-a, but I don’t want to ever be there, eating my chicken sandwich and negotiating favors. Love is bigger, and love is better. It decides what is best, not what is just okay. It forces a skinny three year old to eat her chicken nuggets to put meat on her bones. Love grows babies into grownups. It speaks truth instead of massaging wounds. It picks up kids at school, risking exposure and conversation and fifth grade weirdness. It doesn’t ask, what can the world offer me? Love is affection for the Father–we love because He first loved us.
He waits on the field and we run into his open arms.
