Every night we had family devotes. Not devotions, devotes. Still wet from the bath with our hair sticking to our necks and our nightgowns, we would sit, each of us on an arm of the blue chair under the yellow lamp while Dad read from the God Book. The God Book was the oldest book we'd ever seen, so old that the pictures had no colors. The pages were faded and yellow, like the light in our family room. We would lean over Dad's shoulders to see the pictures, pictures of Esther and David, Nehemiah and Job, and Daniel in his den.
Dad would always start by asking us some review questions from the night before.
"Who was the first king of Israel?"
My brother David: "Saul!" David was still a toddler then, so this was his favorite question to answer. He liked one syllable answers.
"Who was the second kind of Israel?"
"Saul!" Dad would shake his head. "Jesus!" Deep theological implications. Kendall or I would help him get it straight: "Remember? He has the same name as you!"
The stories were engraved in our foreheads and our doorways night after night. Every other year or so, when we finished the God Book, Dad would turn back to the beginning and read it again.
Sometime on one of those nights I heard the story of Moses on the mountain asking to see God's face. We memorized the verse: "No man shall see Me and live." And then another night we heard of Jesus saying "Suffer the little children to come unto me." and somewhere in between those stories I came to know Jesus, and to hear God.
I have wonderful parents who were great at parenting. But this part of it, the gathering and the listening and the Truth that poured over us every night in the soft light of our family room, this part of it was the greatest: that they offered Cold water to the least of these, that they reached out their hands and blessed us.
Sometimes we freak out. This is about a lot more than a cute nursery and an ideal birth experience and a closet full of adorable baby clothes. That the least of these is coming to us, will eternally be ours to feed and bless and carry over rocky paths and whisper to...and all the ways we will surely fail and cry out for help! If we can just gather and listen and pour a little Truth out for her, then we will surely have done what is required of us. And the blessings will surely fall upon her as they fell upon us.
I just got an email from
the Elf describing an USAF PCA Bible study she attended in Germany a few days ago. The parents sat in a circle enclosing their little children on the floor in its center. They could crawl and play "like kittens" Becca described while the adults prayed and shared. When they sang hymns the children would raise their hands and request hymns to sing and the adults would guide them in singing. That seems right.
When we freak out it's good to remember that we're not alone in our efforts. We're not to do this on our own strength, but as agents. We're not doing anything that isn't being done all around the world and when we get tired we can gather together with the Body and support each other in teaching and raising and blessing the least of these.
