Doing the Wave

Originally posted December 8, 2012.

Emerald has learned to wave.  You know that phase of babyhood where everyone constantly makes fools of themselves trying to get the baby to do a new trick?  Yeah, that’s where we are.  We wave and wave and say, “Hiiiiiiiiiiii!  Hiiiiiiiiii, Em-u-ruld!  Hiiiiiiiii, bay-beeee!!!!!”  And she looks at us with some mild interest and mostly just drools or laughs or goes back to her regularly scheduled gnawing on a rubber duck.  Every time she does it, we clap and hoot and holler and make a huge fuss over it because we’re so proud that she has figured this thing out.  She learned this trick a couple of days ago and has only done it a few times, but the more we prompt her over the next few weeks and the more we wave and wave, the more she’ll start to wave back.  Then, once she’s waving all over the place, we’ll quit hooting and hollering.  We’ll smile and say, “So cute.”  Before long we won’t even notice her waving.  She’ll wave and wave and we’ll rush to get the bag and get out the door or we’ll be too busy looking at our grocery list to notice.

But, never fear!  Soon she’ll have a new trick to master, and we’ll start all over again, making fools of ourselves, encouraging her to do it with our silly gestures and our loud voices and our clapping and cheering.  Baby Progress.  It’s a family affair.

Imagine if Emerald grew to be a teenager and she still wanted waving to be her big, impressive trick.  Picture her waking up at ten, walking into the kitchen for some breakfast, waving like mad at me while I sit at the table reading.  What if she kept waving, saying, “MOM!!! Can’t you see I’m waving at you?  Hello?  Aren’t you impressed?  I mean, you’re not even clapping or anything.  Sheesh, what’s a girl gotta do to impress people these days!!!”  Chances are, since I would remember that she mastered waving at six months old, I wouldn’t be all that awed that she can STILL wave at 16.  It would be ridiculous for her to ask me to cheer for that.

But, that’s what we do with God all that time.  We become Christians.  We are spiritual babies.  We start learning more about God and His word, and we grow a little in our faith.  Then we go years and years without growing any more.  We get complacent.  We are happy with our first trick.  Years later, we expect God to still be thrilled by our little bit of growth, even though we should be much more advanced in our knowledge of God and His ways.  The Bible puts it this way:

“In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths  of  God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!” (Hebrews 5:12)

Nobody wants to be a spiritual baby.  Growth comes through study, prayer, and sound teaching.  Just like Emerald, we need our family to help us.  Our churches offer sound teaching and cheer us on as we grow.  And, our Heavenly Father probably gets just as excited as a mama who is seeing her little baby’s new trick for the first time.  Let’s not keep asking Him to be impressed with a mediocre faith, though.  We’ve had plenty of milk.  Time to move on to the meat.

If you’ve been a Christian for awhile, and all you’ve mastered is the wave, it might be time to move on to your next trick.  God is ready and waiting to cheer you on.  And I have a feeling He’s pretty excited about Emerald’s actual waving, too, because He’s wonderful like that.

Discipleship in My Own Backyard

Today I watched my two youngest playing together in the backyard.  Sawyer is six and Emerald is 22 months, and believe me, they don’t always enjoy each other’s company.  But, for the most part, she adores him, and he dotes on her, down to giving her anything in his hand that she wants.  Adelade was at dance class, so it was a rare opportunity for Sawyer to be the big brother, thinking he was totally in charge of things, even though I was keeping a close watch from the kitchen window.  I was curious to see if he would “forget” my charge to keep an eye on her.

I watched as he led her around by the hand, changing directions as her whims demanded.  He took her from toy to toy, held the swing steady so she could climb on, and then gently rocked her back and forth.  I saw him carefully explain with way too much detail how she should go about climbing onto the spring horse, and then I watched her try to follow his instructions while he hoisted her into place and held onto her leg to keep her centered.  She stayed atop the horse for exactly 3.2 seconds, which is about the length of time she stays anyplace, but he was completely unfazed and carefully helped her down.  In all of the instructing (Okay, put your feet here, Emerald.  No, right here, on the pedals.  Like this.  Not exactly.  Let me help you.)  and all of the cheering (Good job, Emerald!  You got on the swing by yourself!  Now hold on and I’ll push you, but don’t be afraid, it’s going to be fun!) and all of the mind-changing (The car?  Okay, let’s ride the little car.  No?  Oh, you want to get back on the swing?  Ok, Emerald, let’s go back over there.), I detected not one ounce of impatience in Sawyer.

I think if Emerald had indicated that she wanted to paint his hair green and take a bath in ketchup he would’ve run in looking for paint and condiments.  He was 100% focused on her, and he didn’t mind her baby-ness or the way she didn’t really understand how to do things that he knew how to do.  I could see his clear and sincere love for her.  He was enjoying teaching her how to be a kid, and when she made even tiny amounts of progress during that process, he was genuinely pleased, and told her so.

While I watched all of this sweetness unfold, it dawned on me that what I was seeing was a beautiful picture of what discipleship should be.  When someone is new to the Christian faith, we sometimes act as if she should automatically know how to live as a Christian.  Often we leave new believers on their own, expecting them to figure out how to grow in their faith, how to know God more, and how to deal with the sin in their lives.  We unintentionally abandon them, when they know no more about the Bible or about the narrow way than a baby knows about climbing onto a spring horse.

We should be more like Sawyer, patiently guiding them, step by step, not getting frustrated when they are learning to mature in their faith, but instead cheering them on in every small victory along the way.  In Titus 2, Paul gives plenty of ideas of what good discipleship looks like:  it is about teaching, loving, and living lives that don’t cause anyone to look down on the gospel.  We all need mentoring.  And as we grow in wisdom and in truth, we can help guide others, with the patience of a six year old boy who loves helping out his little sister.

I doubt I’ll soon forget the precious scene that I witnessed through my kitchen window today.  Sawyer did well with his little charge.  I pray that as I try to disciple my own children and other people God sends my way that I will do it with as much kindness, patience and joy as Sawyer had in the backyard.  No pushing, no frustration, just gentleness and cheering.

Oh, and love.  Lots of love.