One morning, Larry and I were in our kitchen at Campus, leaning with crossed arms against our concrete counters, trying to figure out the solution to a problem. Suddenly I asked, “does that sound like it’s on the car to you?” as I walked out the front door.
I turned toward our dirt driveway to see the uplifted hand of our two-year-old banging an iron file against the bed of our Toyota pick-up. “Isaiah, that’s not for you,” I called out and took it from his hand before he could add another scratch that would rust within the month. He looked up at me and pushed up his lower lip in an attempt to not cry. I looked him in the eye and reminded him to not touch the lima and to not hit the car.
Larry followed a step behind me, took Isaiah by the hand to lead him back to our front porch and said, “that’s a tool. When you’re ready, I’ll teach you how to use it, ok? But for now, it goes right here,” and he slid the lima behind the machetes on the rack just inside our kitchen door.
Larry and I returned to the kitchen, sighed with lack of understanding many times, but came to an adequate solution for the problem. As our attention turned from each other, I noticed Isaiah had been playing on the porch with the dog. When Isaiah saw Larry leaving the kitchen he enthusiastically stood up, ran to the machete rack and said, “are you ready?” Larry and I looked at each other and understood that in the two-year-old’s mind, he was now “ready to use the file.” He didn’t understand how sharp machetes are; he didn’t understand how carefully you have to hold the file so the machete does not cut through skin, tendons and muscle; he didn’t understand that he would not be “ready” for more years than he had been alive.
He was ready now.
Feeling weighed down with the situation we faced, I knew that Larry wouldn’t want to indulge the whim of a toddler. But I saw in the moment it took Larry to decide that this wasn’t just any toddler, this was his toddler. His son.
Now, if any of his daughters had ever intimated that they had any desire whatsoever to learn how to sharpen a machete, I know he would have shown them. But our dancing princesses only use the small machetes to cut rabbit forage and they haven’t even thought to ask if they could learn how to sharpen it.
So out of love for his son, Larry sat down on the porch chair and showed Isaiah how to hold a machete, where to hold the lima, and how to carefully sharpen the machete.
Isaiah was radiant. Larry was tired. But that little boy knows his daddy’s love for him and is confident in his father’s belief that he will one day be a boy and a man who will need to know how to use his machete.
May we be so confident of our Father’s love for us that his heart is tender toward us when we ask him, even if the time isn’t right.
May we love others with the love of our Father, who sees who we are and who sees who we will become—who believes in us and who is preparing us for the days to come.
And may we be “ready,” waiting and eager to learn all God has for us, so that when that Day comes we will have the skills we need to do the work He has prepared for us.
I turned toward our dirt driveway to see the uplifted hand of our two-year-old banging an iron file against the bed of our Toyota pick-up. “Isaiah, that’s not for you,” I called out and took it from his hand before he could add another scratch that would rust within the month. He looked up at me and pushed up his lower lip in an attempt to not cry. I looked him in the eye and reminded him to not touch the lima and to not hit the car.
Larry followed a step behind me, took Isaiah by the hand to lead him back to our front porch and said, “that’s a tool. When you’re ready, I’ll teach you how to use it, ok? But for now, it goes right here,” and he slid the lima behind the machetes on the rack just inside our kitchen door.
Larry and I returned to the kitchen, sighed with lack of understanding many times, but came to an adequate solution for the problem. As our attention turned from each other, I noticed Isaiah had been playing on the porch with the dog. When Isaiah saw Larry leaving the kitchen he enthusiastically stood up, ran to the machete rack and said, “are you ready?” Larry and I looked at each other and understood that in the two-year-old’s mind, he was now “ready to use the file.” He didn’t understand how sharp machetes are; he didn’t understand how carefully you have to hold the file so the machete does not cut through skin, tendons and muscle; he didn’t understand that he would not be “ready” for more years than he had been alive.
He was ready now.
Feeling weighed down with the situation we faced, I knew that Larry wouldn’t want to indulge the whim of a toddler. But I saw in the moment it took Larry to decide that this wasn’t just any toddler, this was his toddler. His son.
Now, if any of his daughters had ever intimated that they had any desire whatsoever to learn how to sharpen a machete, I know he would have shown them. But our dancing princesses only use the small machetes to cut rabbit forage and they haven’t even thought to ask if they could learn how to sharpen it.
So out of love for his son, Larry sat down on the porch chair and showed Isaiah how to hold a machete, where to hold the lima, and how to carefully sharpen the machete.
Isaiah was radiant. Larry was tired. But that little boy knows his daddy’s love for him and is confident in his father’s belief that he will one day be a boy and a man who will need to know how to use his machete.
May we be so confident of our Father’s love for us that his heart is tender toward us when we ask him, even if the time isn’t right.
May we love others with the love of our Father, who sees who we are and who sees who we will become—who believes in us and who is preparing us for the days to come.
And may we be “ready,” waiting and eager to learn all God has for us, so that when that Day comes we will have the skills we need to do the work He has prepared for us.