I am an older dad and it is hilarious! I am 65 years old and my youngest is 11. He is a trip to behold from my vantage point. It’s like watching a Golden retriever puppy rampaging through your house. Their destruction is inadvertent as they cut a path like a tornado through your living room, leaving a wake of minor disasters.
Some of it is a lack of attention on my son’s part and he needs gentle correcting so that he can secure for himself an admirable character but most of his mess ups (I have concluded) are like that cute puppy. It’s the wonderful hazard of looking at life as an adventure waiting to happen. For instance, he and a friend were in the forest near our house the other day and some tree was “crying out to be climbed”. The next day he is scratching like, well, a dog. How was he suppose to know that those hairy vines on the tree were poison ivy?
Yes, that Golden retriever puppy is going to mess up and you are going to get angry at him but oh those adorable eyes! How can you stay mad at him? It’s part of the collateral damage of a life lived with gusto. That’s my son.
What triggered these thoughts today was that earlier this morning I opened the dryer door to see if something I was looking for was in there. As I opened the door slowly, knowing that there was a pile of my son’s dry clothes in it, out popped to the floor a pistachio shell. I started laughing. My 11 year old has been told numerous times that if he eats pistachios to PLEASE throw the shells away. My wife and I find pistachio shells everywhere. In the bathroom. Next to the computer. On the floor near the TV. In the car. And of course, in his favorite place, his inner sanctum, his room. Finding a shell somewhere is like being on an Easter Egg hunt that you didn’t know you were invited to.
I can’t help but think about God, our Father, when I reflect on this. Here I am utterly amused at my 11 yr old’s antics. How does God look at us as we ramble through the kitchen of life, sliding across the floor, trying to find our legs? I cannot help but think that he is amused just like me.
Jesus said,“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7.11
God, our Father, is so much more loving and kind and forgiving than me. Thank God!
Let your life be more of an adventure with God. Step out of the boat of life when God calls you. Sure you may get some ”poison ivy” on the way. Unfortunately, it’s part of the adventure. We mess up. But don’t throw away the adventure and get too set in your ways and miss the calling of God because you can’t do it perfectly. Yes, you will probably make some mistakes on the way but don’t worry God will clean it up, probably shake his head and I hope, get a good laugh at it.