April 6 – “Paying attention”

Since it’s Sunday and I still want to go over the teaching for today a time or two, let me just share a kid story or two.  Every Thursday we host and I teach a home Bible study.  Right now we are walking through the Book of Exodus.  We are getting close to the end of the plagues.  Number nine.  This one was the plague of darkness.  I thought it would be a rather straightforward look at what it would be like to live in total darkness for three days.  But I hadn’t accounted for three-year-old Brennan being there.  That would be three-year-old Brennan who immediately responded when I asked the opening question: “Is anyone afraid of the dark?”  He looked up at his Dad, and Corey encouraged him to “Tell PK.”  So he did.  “I afraid of the dark, PK.”  Brennan is afraid of the dark.  Oh, boy.  Kind of put a damper on one part of the lesson.  I discovered a description from an old Book of Wisdom passage about what the three days of darkness might have been like.  Pretty scary stuff.  Good thing it wasn’t very long.  I found out after the study that by the time I finished Brennan was asking his dad to “Make PK stop reading.”  I’ll have to pay attention and watch out for that next time.  Oh, and by the way, I’m pretty sure Brennan wasn’t the only one in the group who was still a little scared of the dark. 

That morning I had been assigned the enviable task of taking Cailyn to school.  I say enviable because that short ride over to Oppe Elementary often results in some of the most profound statements ever made.  This time, though, we almost didn’t make it out of the driveway.  I confess we were in a bit of a hurry to get her to school on time so I could make it to water therapy on time.  But as I opened the back seat for Cailyn to get in, she balked.  Her arms immediately crossed across her chest.  Her bottom lip pooched out in a pouting frown.  Being the astute judge of female moods that I am, I asked, “Is something wrong?  Hop in.  Remember, we have to get you to school and I have to get to water therapy.”  A reluctantly compliant sigh escaped from her lips, and she grudgingly crawled into the car.  But not before announcing:

“How many times do I have to tell you DadDad?  I want to ride in the truck.  Now when you get home from water thurpy, you just take this car seat out of here and put it in the truck when you come get me.” 
So how do you respond to something like that?  I did what any other self-respecting grandpa would do.  I snapped to attention and saluted. 

This whole “paying attention” and “snapping to attention” thing is hard work.  Sure beats walking through life in a foggy daze, though.  Lots more fun. 

2 John 6 says, “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

Father, help me with this attention thing.  I don’t want to miss any of the “love ops” you have out there for me to experience.  Amen.