living life as a humble student of Jesus

Almost every night before I put my son Josiah to bed we read together several stories from his Bible story book which is basically a cartoon illustrated Bible paraphrase. Two nights ago we read the story about Gideon from Judges 6:33-40. In the story Gideon wants some major reassurance about the task he feels God is calling him to do. So just to be sure, he puts out fleeces. He asks God to make a fleece wet and ground dry. Then he wants the fleece dry and the ground wet. Each request by Gideon is answered by God in the passage in Judges. After we finished reading, Josiah confidently said, “See that dish on my dresser? I am going to ask God to make it disappear while I am sleeping. Can we pray for that?”!  That is not quite what I expected but why not? He had obviously been listening to the story and figured that if it worked for Gideon it would surely work for him? My mind raced to come up with a response. What if he prays and the dish is still there in the morning? So we settled on praying that God would make his presence known to Josiah in a special way. But later as I thought about it, did I do the right thing? Should we have prayed for that? To be honest I am not 100% sure what right answer is. I am glad Josiah was listening to the story and I am glad that he naturally thought what he was hearing was relevant for him. I think this is what Jesus meant when he talked about “child-like faith” in passages like Mark 10:13-16. As a dad I know I am on to something even if it is a little crazy and chaotic at times. I want Josiah and my girls as well to experience the love relationship of God in a deep whole-hearted way. I have a responsibility as a Dad to lead by example and look for ways to teach from the ordinary everyday moments. I found great encouragement from this verse I read in the Message, “Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.”

Technorati Tags: parenting, Bible, prayer, application, discipleship