Something struck me for the first time today: Jesus didn’t have children.
I know, duh, right. Like wow Jason, Seminary, really?!? There’s 30grand well spent!
But here me out. For many reasons i have been feeling a sense of fear and anxiety about my kid lately. Not the existential kind of fears like will he grow up to be a good guy? will i survive the phase when he hates me? But honest to God fears for his safety. I think this has been brought on by a handful of things.
1st, Tara and I just watched a mini series on the BBC America (yep, we’re nerds) called Torchwood:Children of Earth and it was compelling, entertaining and disturbing. I recomend it for those of you who don’t have kids, for those who do — not so much.
2nd, There’s been a bit of an uptick in crime in my neighborhood these last few days. And it makes me nervous because it is happening during the day which is when i am home alone with Ethan.
3rd, I have been following the adventure’s of my friends the Alt’s who have traveled (along with a 8(?) year old daughter) to Guinea, one of the world’s poorest countries.
All of these things together have got me wondering how radically faithful am i willing to be now that I have a wife and especially a son. Don’t get me wrong, its not that I was radically faithful before, but i have a better sense of what that could look like now and a better sense of how my life doesn’t look like that at all.
So the question is, is there a limit of how much like Jesus I can be with a kid?
or put another way…
If He were in my life circumstance, what would Jesus do?
No one knows. Why? Because Jesus didn’t have kids.
Wow Jason. That’s alot you’ve been thinking about & interesting to think about in light of the fact that Jesus did not have children.
I think there is a limit to how radical you can be w/ your faith, if you have the responsibility to care for a child. I, unfortunately, am not that great at memory verses, but somewhere in the New Testament there is instruction about how some people should not marry. These instructions are given, so that those people will be freed up to follow Jesus to the ultimate ends. But once you get married, & especially after you have kids . . . God knows that you will have some Earthly responsibilities to other human beings. Personally, I interpret that to mean that God wants me to be as faithful as possible to Him through the care of my husband & daughter.
Does that make sense? Radically faithful demonstrated by the way I work to love Dave & Maggee.
BTW, watching shows that include danger to or harm of children after you have your own is soooo painful. When Maggee was Ethan’s age I was especially sensitive to it.
Ya, i think that’s part of it. But keep in mind, you’re saying that from Guinea! Not exactly un-radical!
Okay, well, Guinea is little nutty . . . but we took a really calculated risk. We didn’t just go, “God probably thinks we can do some good in Guinea, let’s get on a plane.”
We were pretty Un-radical in our planning for it. We decided it was our goal to go to Africa. Dave finished a masters in Intl Development. He got a job in DC. He worked there for two yrs. Then he got an offer for an African position. We made sure we had vaccines covered, medical evacuation covered, moving expenses, housing w/ 24 hr security, schooling w/ security, etc. It took us 4 yrs of work & then we made sure every conceivable i was dotted & t was crossed.
Actually, what is your take on that? Can you still be “radically faithful” if you spend so much time planning & you try to prepare for every possible risk? Is that really radical anymore?
Absolutely! In fact this is helpful, i think one of the reasons we can have a hard time having productive conversations about radical faith in the church at large is because the stories we tell of radical faith always have a sense of spontaneity. I mean spontaneity can be an aspect of radical faithfulness, but i certainly don’t think its a pre-requisite.
Somehow we need to distinguish between radical and irresponsible, especially when we are talking about our children. What you guys did was radical and not irresponsible (as you have just shown) but more radical than i feel like i could be. on the other hand not everyone would try to plant a church either — so maybe the grass is always more radical on the other side
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LOL! Yeah, what about that . . . you planted a church! Why do you think that isn’t radical? That is a huge leap & the sort of leap Dave & I would never take. We would be way too freaked out.
All of this said, if you wanna’ come visit Guinea, you are more than welcome. We would love to have visitors & maybe once you saw it first hand, it wouldn’t seem so risky. Crrrrazy, yes, but maybe not as risky as imagined. LOL!
Does it shed new insight into Genesis and the story of God telling Abraham to KILL his son!?!? Or God’s sacrifice of his son for us?
Actually, to be honest, it makes both those ideas so unthinkable to me that it becomes hard to think rationally about them.