Can you hear me now?

So, I'm in my office the other day(at my house, of course) , and I hear the kids down the hall asking Barb where I am. They're looking all around, but fail to check in here for some reason. Nothing too unusual.

But then I got to thinking about it. All they had to do was call my name, and I would have answered them.

How much is that like our God? How often do we run all over looking for Him, trying to find Him or His will, and all the while, He's just waiting for us to call His name? Jesus said that unless we become like little children in our faith, we can't enter the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:13-16).

I've spent some time considering this, especially now that I have children of my own and I learn so much from them. My kids are completely dependent and trusting of me and my wife. Everything they have and need comes from us. They inherently come to us if and when they need anything--or even, rather especially, if they WANT something. They don't even stop to consider whether they should be asking for these things or not. They simply come and ask, trusting we will answer. We are their providers; they know to whom to come for everything.

What's more, they never question our love. Even when they've been disciplined for something, they recognize they're still completely and wholly loved. We love them, and there's nothing they can do to change that. We work hard at being sure they know that we love them beyond any shadow of a doubt.

When it comes to our faith, I'm wrestling with how we apply Christ's words. For one I think it must mean what I said above. When we need Him, when we're looking for Him--He's waiting to be found. We simply need to call out His name--He will answer.

It also means His love for us is infinite and all encompassing. Psalm 139 says there's no place we can go to escape it.

But it also must mean that we accept what comes our way as a child accepts what a parent sends its way. We must embrace God's law, His will, His ways without question. Not that we don't struggle mightily to make sense of it all, or even act like we have it, any of it, figured out at all. Never-the-less, we recognize that we're the created ones, and He's the Creator.

I heard a pastor recently preaching about the story of Job. What he said at the end caught my attention. (Forgive me ahead of time for having to leave so much out.) He said that Job suffered precisely because He did the right thing. His pain was the result of his being a righteous and good person. Had he not been faithful, he wouldn't have suffered.

And so the preacher concluded this: Job suffered because He was good. But Job was blessed because God is good.

Simply because we're good, or faithful, or honest, or righteous--or whatever adjective you want to use to describe it--doesn't mean we'll never experience pain, personal loss, confusion, sickness, mental illness, or any myriad of calamities. In fact, if Job's story teaches anything it's that we're more likely than not to experience them simply because we are good and faithful.

Yet, whenever we do experience something good, or blessed, or lovely, we, like children, must recognize it as coming from the hand of a good God. Blessing and God's goodness are inextricably bound together.

In starting out in this new endeavor, I've had a lot of questions. There's so much uncertainty with planting a new church from scratch. But this is the place I want to be--right in the place where my very life and future depend on the blessing and direction that comes from the hand of God.

I hope that I'm learning more and more each day to call on God's name, to depend on Him for everything, and to accept what He sends my way--in essence, to become like a child in my faith and trust in Him.

I hope you are too.