A Beautiful Example

Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Deuteronomy 4:9  

Yesterday in church I saw something so sweet and it reminded me of how dear and tender our Lord is with us. Seated in front of me was a family consisting of a man and a woman, their teenage daughter and a son who looked about six or seven. I’ve never seen them before and so supposed that they were visitors. Sadly the service yesterday was bad. I don’t know if our pastor had a rough week or what was going on.  I do know that it was far from the norm for our church.  It was disappointing to my husband and me, regulars, but what must it seem like to a visitor?

Thankfully, at the point of the service where we greet each other it appeared that the family I thought was visiting knew a few people. I decided they must have been there before, perhaps in the last couple of weeks when my husband and I were out of town. Whew! They weren’t judging our church on its worst day.

Toward the end of the service the nursery worker brought in the youngest members of our congregation and the “little” family in front of me grew by four children, whose ages and varying races suggested that at least some of them were adopted.  As we sang the closing song the dad raised his hands in praise and three little people, somewhere around the age of three or four, looked up at him and raised their hands as well. Precious!

As I looked at them I thought, what a great example!  Too many children see and/or hear daddies cursing at the traffic, taking the Lord’s name in vain, being disrespectful to mommy, to themselves, to the world in general and that is what they emulate. How lovely it was to see these adorable little ones, hands raised to heaven. I had to wonder if they had any idea why they were doing it, beyond the fact that it was what Daddy was doing.

In that moment I wanted nothing more than to be just like them.  I wanted to do the things I see my Father doing.  Like some of the little ones in front me, I am also adopted, as is every Christian person. We are adopted by our Father in heaven and would be so wise to imitate him as closely as the little ones in church were imitating their daddy. How much nicer life would be if I could look up, see what my Father is doing and do the exact same thing.

We are told in Scripture to change and become like children (Matthew 18:2) and to come to Christ as children (Luke 18:16). When we do, we need to come as children willing to learn by example, as children well aware of how blessed we are to have been chosen to be a child of God.