Blog
It’s been a particularly busy summer for me. Of the ten weeks of summer between the last week of June and August, I’ve spent nearly half of them at camps, youth events, and Vacation Bible School. Throw in a few weddings on the weekends and other special events, and needless to say the summer is over. Just for a point of reference, it took me until last Sunday (that’s more than ½ way through August) to find an afternoon to relax by some water with my family for the first time this year—and that’s my favorite summer pastime! Needless to say, I’ve been running.
And the only ones who have felt that running more than me are my wife and daughters. And as a side note before I go any farther, I am compelled to thank God for them. Without their support and my wife’s cape and superhero powers, I could not do the work I feel God calling me to do. As my personal schedule settles back into the closest thing you can call a routine in ministry, I cannot wait to make up for some of that time with them in the next few weeks. But if you ask my daughter, Quinn, just the next few weeks isn’t nearly enough time.
Just the other night as I tucked her into bed I said, “Daddy doesn’t need to go away for a while now.”
She curiously responded, “So you’re going to stay with me?”
I answered, “I’m going to stay with you.”
And then she got me, “…forever?”
“Forever.”
A lot of churches out there follow a three-year cycle of Bible readings called a lectionary. Not that it’s the point, but they do it so that their churches can experience the broad depth of the scriptures. The broad depths we’ve been reading together lately all have to do with Jesus’ claim to be the bread of life.
Jesus says he’s the bread of life from heaven.
Jesus says the bread that he will give for the life of the world is his flesh.
Jesus says that those who eat of it will be raised on the last day.
Jesus says those who eat the bread will abide in him and he in them.
And Jesus says he will make us to live forever.
As I sat in my daughter’s bed and listened to her plea for her father to stay with her forever, I heard those words. You see we are children of the Heavenly Father, and as children we long know our parents are close. How comforting then to know that God doesn’t just keep us close, he stops at nothing short of giving his flesh for the life the world so that we will stay with him and he with us forever.
The funny and sweet thing about listening to my daughter ask me to stay with her forever is realizing how little she comprehends what forever actually means. For her, forever means right now through until she goes to bed through tomorrow. Little does she know my love and presence with her is going to last a lot longer than that. And so it is with God and his love. We cannot ever comprehend the depth to which our God loves us, the extent to which he is willing to go to be with us, or just how long God’s plan to be with us forever actually is. And I’m okay with that. Actually, I’m grateful it. And offer, like Quinn, this simple prayer: Be with me, God …forever. Amen.
