Tag Archives: Child

His Face

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Someone on Facebook asked the question: “What made Jesus compelling to you?” My answer was, “His Face.” He said that he was “interested to hear more!” I asked him if I could give him a long answer as to why. This is my long answer as to why I find His face compelling.

How do I know Jesus’ face? I’ve been collecting a kind of mosaic.

  1. In the Scriptures in the original languages. My Dad wrote this for me in my first Greek New Testament. It’s from A.T.R. “A Grammar of the Greek New Testament” pg xix. “There is nothing like the Greek New Testament to rejuvenate the world which came out of the Dark ages with the Greek Testament in its hand. Erasmus wrote in the Preface to his Greek Testament about his own thrall of delight: ‘These holy pages will summon up the living image of His mind. They will give you Christ Himself, talking, healing, dying, rising, the whole Christ in a word; they will give Him to you in an intimacy so close that He could be less visible to you if He stood before your eyes.’” I personally have found this to be true not only in the New Testament, but also in the Old. The Face of Yahweh, is revealed at last in the divine human face of Jesus. “He who has seen [Jesus] has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
  2. Visions. He has let me see something of Him, which of course is appropriated to my being enabled to receive, and the purpose He has for me according to which any revelation is designed to conform me to Him. This is submitted to Scripture. Also, all of this is in relationship with God, as I seek to engage with God with a “pure in heart” (they will see God) and “clear conscience.” (1 Tim 1:5)
  3. Scripturally exemplified relationships. When I see Jacob’s story of wrestling with the “man” I see how he engaged with Him, and afterward went to see Esau. When he saw Esau, Jacob says, “. . . I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.” Gen 33:10 This is translatable as “I have seen your face like seeing the face of God, and you have favored me.” How did he know what seeing the face of God was? He recognized the favor in Esau’s face according to God’s face. So, I recognize Jesus’ face in love and relationships. As the musical Les Miserables ends, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
  4. Interest. I am a very interested person, because I know that through Jesus everything was made, which means everything that exists has come through Jesus, and I like tracing it back to him. As G.K. Chesterton says, “There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.” I have an open face to see the world, to know what it all means as coming from Him. This open face is what I love about children (I’m a school teacher) because their hearts are so full of wonder. And when I welcome them in His name I welcome Him, and I recognize Him. (Mark 9:37)
  5. Art. When I see a painting that answers what He has revealed to me through His word, through the Holy Spirit, through relationship, and the world around me, I do not worship that “image” or “idea,” I take it to God as I seek to know Him face-to-face personally not eidetically or un-livingly. Examples: The famous picture by Akiane Kramarik, the Nathaniel Hawthorn Story: “The Great Stone Face,” Michael Card’s Song “His Gaze” are all parts of the mosaic, which bear some likeness to the One I know personally!
  6. Glory. Not the glory of man, but as I worship Him, I know His glory, and that glory is the revelation of Christ. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” And the more time we spend “seeking His face” in worship, the more the light of His face will shine through us.

So, I know His face by pure heart, clear conscience, and sincere faith in His Word, by His Spirit, with love, throughout creation, from his revelations, and as worship. And it is beyond compelling. It is beyond compare. It is . . . altogether lovely.

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The Broom

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He didn’t know why it was laying against the kitchen wall. Kitchens don’t usually have walls, but he figured it could be fun to play with. Grown-ups all seemed to learn one way of doing something and to stick to it. He wanted to try them all!

  1. First he grabbed the handles with both hands and thrust the broomy end at his sisters to poke fun at them. They were not amused.
  2. Then, he went into the living room and spun it around on his hands and it fell clattering to the floor as he dropped it. He tried again because it was fun! Maybe he could do it for a whole minute!
  3. He held the stick nearest the broom between his legs and started swaying his body back and forth to move things off the coffee table with the tip of the handle.
  4. He balanced it on his head and tried to walk through a door with each end sticking out either side. It fell backwards instantly, but after a second try he bent up his leg and caught it on his heel!
  5. He flipped the broom so that the broomy end was up, and he parted it down the middle like hair and grabbed both clumps. He then started rotating the broom like it was a giant steering wheel and he became the pilot of a ship heading through rough seas. The wind was bellowing, the lightning flashing, the rain hailing down on him. The ship ran aground and he took his musket with him with the wide end under his arm, and the tip pointing out in front of him. He made his way to a beautiful lighthouse. He climbed to the top, and from the top saw there was another ship. A Pirate ship! He looked through the scope of his gun, and saw that they were getting ready to sail. He jumped down from the lighthouse onto the ground, and fired a shot at one of the pirates holding onto a rope. And when the man fell off, he grabbed the rope and swung up onto the deck. Suddenly, he was surrounded by bad guys, and his musket now became a sword! He fought them off, and swung his sword wide to fend off the attackers! He reached the Captain, and the captain said if he could beat him in a fight, he’d be the new captain. So, he fought the captain, and swung his sword down on his head and knocked him unconscious. The crew were amazed! The captain shook his head vigorously after a few moments, and he took the hat off the captain’s head and he became the new captain of the ship!

The Secret to Slowing Time

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Now that I am exiting another stage of life, Time has locked into high gear for me. Days are an afterthought. Weeks gone in a blink. In a flash the months are past. I anticipate time will only continue to accelerate.

I know time hasn’t budged. It continues to grind at the same pace it has with a few variations of years being seconds longer or shorter. I know the change is within me. What has caused me to feel time has sped up?

I believe I have found the brake pedal and the gas pedal for time. Why do children feel like every day is an eternity, and most adults feel like it is a blur? This equation helped me find the answer:

Requirements speed up time
Retirements slow it down

Ask any retired person, their days crawl by just like a child’s does. When in the working world however, our time is being poured out into the mold of those who require things of us. Our present is thinned to a narrow strip between what just happened and what is needing to happen in the next minutes.

Present time is the greatest gift we have: and the celebration of that present gift is rest. Responsibly rejecting the requirements of a person for a time, and enjoying the gift of doing nothing of required consequence allows a person to be real with themselves, and most importantly with God. This is what makes rest an act of worship which just happens to be prescribed in the Ten Commandments.

Think about it: Why do you work? Why do you do anything? Is it not a reflection of your belief about the God who you worship? If you believe God is always working, then you will never give yourself a break. If however, your design is patterned after a God who rests occasionally, should that not inform your decisions concerning your own rest?

Genesis 2:2–“On the seventh day God rested.”

The Lord has made us after the pattern of His likeness with eternity in our hearts. It is Eternity that we step into whenever we rest from our labor. The silence, the stillness, the sweet release of tension– These are the gift of God to a body worn down by time’s millstone march.

This Christmas season, take time to rest. Enjoy the gift of eternity that God has given you, and see what your heart is just waiting to release as part of the tension you have built up over time.

This post was a result of resting.

A Goodnight Kiss: a Gospel Story

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– – There was a little girl of 5 years old. Her parents took her to church very week. One day in Sunday School, she learned about Jesus blessing the children. That night when she went to bd, she said her prayers the way she always did, and this time she prayed, “Jesus, could you kiss me goodnight?” And she got in bed, and she’d stay up all night waiting for Jesus to kiss her on the cheek, while she listened to her Mommy and Daddy arguing in the other room. The goodnight kiss didn’t come. But she kept asking him every night before she went to bed.
– – Then, one night while her parents were arguing and the little girl was lying in bed awake by her open window, she grabbed her ears and prayed again that same prayer, “Jesus, please kiss me goodnight.” And then as she drifted almost to sleep, she closed her eyes, and felt a breeze blow through the window and brush against her cheek. She sat up, and looked but she didn’t see anyone, but she felt in her heart that she had been kissed goodnight by Jesus.
– – The next morning, the girl skipped into the kitchen where her Mommy and Daddy were eating breakfast, and they noticed that their daughter was more cheery than usual. So her Mommy asked, “Good morning! You look chipper this morning. Did you sleep well last night?” The girl nodded with a grin, “M hm. Jesus kissed me goodnight.” And she skipped off into the next room to play.
– – How do you think the parents reacted when they heard this? They were very sorry that they had been fighting, and had not kissed their daughter goodnight. And every night from that day on, every night both of them came in to tuck in their daughter and kissed her good night.

And that is what the Gospel is all about.