Jan 2nd 2014

Got Milk?

Daniel, my four-year-old nephew, and I had our first stairway chat last week. (Stairway chats are an Auntie Leah tradition, started years ago when Lorenzo – now 20 – was a little boy.) During stairway chats, we sit on the hallway stairs – just the two of us – and talk about whatever is on our minds.

Well, on Daniel’s mind that night were “houseless” people (his term for the homeless) and where they sleep, the differences between plane rides and train rides, the reasons I needed a bigger apartment, whether I would always have a bed for him in my house, whether grown people have daddies, and whether soda can kill you.

And then we got to the really deep stuff: Where is God? How can He be in heaven and with us on earth at the same time? Does God really hear us? Does God have a voice? What does it sound like? How can He live in heaven AND in our hearts at the same time?

I will openly confess that I did not have ready answers for all of his questions. I finally offered that God was like Superman or Spiderman. (Daniel is currently obsessed with superheroes.) So God is able to see everything, hear from far distances, and come quickly to us when we need Him. And that answer satisfied my beautiful, smart nephew – at least for the moment!

But I was mostly taken with the innocence of Daniel’s questions. Asked earnestly and spoken purely with just a yearning desire to know, and an assumption that I would have the answers.

As we get grown, we walk with so much cynicism. Over the years we build an armor around our hearts and our minds, and we take that armor into every situation and every relationship we have. Even our relationship with God. But if we really want to know God, we have to learn how to come to Him with the innocence and openness of children. Earnestly, purely, seeking to know His heart. You have questions? It’s all right to ask! Just the act of asking God for the answers is a statement of your faith: It shows that you believe that He has the answers you seek and that He is willing to share them with you. Maybe it’s time you and God had a stairway chat of your own . . .