not sleeping in the closet

I need to preface this story by saying I should be finishing my sermon for tomorrow morning. I have a few tweaks to make to it but one of my take away points is that children (and others we overlook) are not a burden to our lives. And so my son helped me take to heart this point tonight as I was putting him to bed.

Our oldest son Brighton talks a long time to go to bed...I mean a long time. Every night is another adventure and I'm sure Super Nanny could break him of his tireless habits but we have not been able to.

As it was, I tucked him into bed after he took every last second to go to the bathroom and get a sip of water, then I told him a story.

After this it was back and forth a number of times until I gave him an ultimatum.

I told Brighton, who was sleeping with a stuffed Shamu for comfort, one final time, "If you get out of bed one more time, Shamu is mine and he is going to sleep in the closet."

Brighton replied, "Daddy, you don't sleep in the closet."

Trying not to laugh, I walked out of the room and started writing again.

the bigness and smallness of the Kingdom

Tonight I found myself talking with my oldest son in our kitchen about the reality of the Kingdom of God. I want him to understand at an early age how big God's Kingdom is and how he gets to participate in God's work wherever God is present. So here I was talking with a little boy about this huge idea that many brillant theologians, let alone me, have a difficult time explaining in a clear and brief explanation. In fact, Jesus only tells stories about the Kingdom because it is so hard to explain and understand. Stories help illustrate the beautiful mess that the Kingdom is.

I tried to explain how big God's Kingdom is by raising my arms as high as I could and said, "The Kingdom of God is bigger than Daddy." I didn't see it click in his eyes, so I pointed at our house (or the walls of our kitchen) and raised my voice (slightly) and said, "It's bigger than our house!" Again, I didn't see it click so I stretched my arms out as far as I could stretch, raised my voice again and said, "It's bigger than Legoland!!" By the way, he had just gone to his favorite place on earth (atleast for the moment). His eyes got real big and he had a huge smile on his face like he understood.

May we be people that learn to communicate the Kingdom of God through story...our story, God's story and even stories that little boys can understand.