As I sat watching with my children, a thought occurred to me.  There have been times that I should have said, “Honey, I shrunk the kids.”  It was not in the context of a lab experiment gone wrong especially, it was in the crucible of parenting that it happened.  There were times my analysis of their behavior shrunk their little hearts and made tears appear.  There were times when clear expectations unmet meant a moment of consequence had arrived and frustration shrunk a smile into a cloudy frown.  There were times when the anger boiled and the words arrived much too quickly, then I shrunk their hearts with the same fatherly words that had once shrunk mine, even though I had said I never would.  Once in a while, the confidence I had tried to build into them was shrunk to tiny proportions of the effort exerted.  The time to rebuild it took exponentially more time than the time to shrink it.  I had to say, “I am sorry” more than once, for eventually, I too felt diminished by what transpired.

It has always seemed a cruel irony that the little fellows come without an owner’s manual from God.  From the moment self-awareness comes to them, we struggle to teach, train, raise, instruct, love and nurture them in environments rich enough that they can leave our homes and be fully functional adults.  Our desire to achieve that uncertain outcome, coupled with our own anxiety about failing as a parent, often means we exert control measures that are less about changing behavior and more about changing how we feel about ourselves as parents, dealing with whatever expectations we may have for ourselves as a parent.  Our children know it often, even if they fail to have the language to articulate what they experience.

How then did God intend for us to be as parents relating to children?  What did God do as a father who made sure his only son was born into – you know it – the family unit?  How is it that Jesus could realize the call of God upon him enough to lay down the craftsman’s tools and take up his cross?  Could it be that Joseph and Mary were ideal?  Hardly.  Mary and the family had their own control issues. Don’t believe me?  Try to remember the story of Jesus being told that his family was waiting outside of a place he was speaking to take him home, convinced he was mad or possessed.

What marked the family of Jesus?  Perhaps just this – the environment was just safe enough from shrinkage that he could grow in wisdom, stature, and in the love and respect of God the Father.  How about ours?

See you soon in the place where the Father sings over us in song, disciplines us when we are wrong, and loves us beyond compare.
Pastor Mark