No, I Do It Like Daddy

My son Ethan is two and a half and fantastically potty trained. I thought it was going to be a nightmare when we started but I was wrong. It went well. It didn't take long. He even gets up in the night to go potty. That is good boy behavior but not good sleeping for me.

On the day in question he was in the nursery at church and he had to go. We have this tiny little toilet in there, tiny little thing. No adult should use it. I know from experience. It is so low to the ground that you think you might fall into a black hole before you finally find your resting place on it. That is probably too much information but I want you to picture that cute little tiny commode. It is so tiny. It was time to go and the nursery attendant got him ready to sit right down on the kid sized potty. But that wouldn't do. Even though that is what he always does, he wouldn't do it. No sitting for this little boy. No sitting today. Instead he said to her, "No, I do it like daddy."

We had a good laugh over that. Probably once again, too much information, but it is in little moments like this that suddenly my heart is stretched. "No, I do it like daddy" is funny coming out of the mouth of a little boy who wants to be a big boy. It is also powerful. It demonstrates the vast amount of trust, respect and awe that a little boy has for daddy. It reminds me of Jesus and how he talked about how his actions show us the face of the father. Jesus lived the perfect life of "doing it like daddy." Now, Jesus and God are one so it might feel a little bit like a no brainer that Jesus would be able to pull that off. But Jesus was also fully man, right. Fully man and fully God. I am fully human. But I have this God glimmer in me, this imago Dei, this Divine Spark that calls out in the midst of my life: "I wanna do it like Daddy. I wanna be like Jesus."

I talked on Sunday about the Shema and how when the Jewish people used the word "hear" it didn't just mean, "Listen up!" it meant "listen and then act." The most powerful thing I can do as a Christian is to listen to the Words of Jesus and then do them. I don't want to sit on my hands anymore. I don't want to wrestle with sin anymore. I don't want to objectify others, categorize people, or make judgement calls that are none of my business. I want to be like Jesus. I want to do what Jesus did. I want my trust in Him to be so strong, so deep, so rich that no matter where I am or what I am doing I will say, "No, I'm gonna do it like Jesus."

I got all of that from a little boy who wanted to pee like his dad, isn't God funny!