I’ve been blessed with grandchildren….number 11 is on the way as I write this! And like most grandparents I find them adorable and wondrous, and I learn a lot from being with them. When my twin granddaughters, Emma and Georgia, were two years old my entire family rented a multi-bedroom house in Destin near the beach with its own pool. It was controlled pandemonium. One afternoon we were in the pool and I was watching the girls jump from the edge into the pool. My son, their fun uncle, was grinning, waiting to catch them with his arms outstretched. What I noticed was how loose their bodies were, how joyful, how trusting. Unable yet to swim, they had no fear of the deep water because they completely trusted him. They couldn’t touch him until they jumped toward him so it was a leap of faith. The weaker ones, the smaller, were depending on the stronger one, eclipsing fear as they were lost in the sheer delight of jumping again and again.
The other thing I noticed was the way they took turns and waited for each other, cheering each other on. They would say each time: “my turn sister,” and the other would watch and wait. How great if we Christians chose that stance, watching each other joyfully trust, supporting each other, cheering each other on while knowing our time would also come. What would it be like if we considered “how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:24)? We are truly members of one another so why wouldn’t we “seek after that which is good for one another” (I Thess. 5:15)? What benefit to each other and the kingdom that would be!
As I write this, I’m in Austin staying with one of my daughters and her family, full with three sons, 6, 4 and 2. Her Ben, who is 4, has never been enthusiastic about playing with his younger brother. But, on this occasion, the 2 year old, Zeke, was playing nearby and fell down. Ben waited a beat, then went over to him, sighed deeply, lifted him up under his arms and said: “Even when God isn’t here, I’ll pick you up.” He doesn’t yet know God will always be there for both of them, but what a picture to us! We are the ones who are Jesus to the hurting ones around us, the ones who lift up and assure, who set on their feet again those who have fallen. Again I wonder what it would be like if we challenge ourselves to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom. 12:10). Yet honoring one another is a beautiful expression of his life. Aristides, sent by the Emperor Hadrian to spy out the early Christians came back and reported: “Behold how they love one another!” Wouldn’t it be an amazing statement in our culture if this could be said of us today?
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