Blakeyblog

All last week I got to help out with Camp Compass (our church’s version of Vacation Bible School). I didn’t have a permanent position but was a fill-in for people who needed help or leaders who couldn’t be there. They called me a “Gumby.” I had a great week talking with 4th graders and doing whatever needed to be done. If Tyler wasn’t in Jr. Camp Compass I carried him around in his Baby Bijorn and as you can see, he was a happy little camper.

They had a childrens music guy there named Rob Biagi who does a bunch of catchy songs with choregography. I still can’t get some of them out of my head! The teaching was centered around characteristics of God’s love–giving, kind, caring, forgiving and forever. Bobby had the opportunity to teach the 4th-6th grade group (the Sharks!). My favorite lesson he gave this week was the day on giving. He brought out a great point from the familiar verse, John 3:16–

“For God so loved the world that He gave
His only only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life.”

We are very familiar with this verse but rarely hear about John 3:14-15–

“And as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man
be lifted up,
that whoever believes in Him
should not perish
but have eternal life.”

This verse is a reference to Numbers 21:5-9 where the Israelites were complaining and the Lord sent firey serpents among the people and the bit the people and many of them died. The Israelites turned to Moses and told him they had sinned against the Lord and begged him to ask the Lord to take the serpents away. So the Lord said to Moses–

“Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole;
and it shall be that everyone who is bitten,
when he looks at it, shall live.”

Bobby brought some gummy worms and gave one to each camper. At first they pretended the gummy worms were fiery serpents trying to eat them. So Bobby held up a gummy worm they could look at and live that represented the serpent Moses had put on a pole. Bobby asked how many of the campers had complained before and every one of them raised their hand. He explained that we also needed to confess this sin against the Lord and look to Christ to live. In fact, the gummy worm Bobby had held up was taped to a cross. Suddenly it wasn’t just a Bible story, but an example of the repentance and faith in Christ we all need to have to be saved. It is encouraging to me how a story so simple that children can understand has such serious impact on our eternity.

A lot of people these days want to hold baby Tyler. And I don’t blame them. He’s cute and cuddly, smiles and squeals, makes cooing and razzing sounds–why wouldn’t they want to hold him? But I am struggling with not always comfortable with people holding him.

When Tyler was just a newborn, not that many people asked to hold him but when people did they were so careful, washed their hands and sat down. Now he’s almost six months old and people will simply walk up and try to snatch him away or ask to hold him a lot. I don’t know if most new moms or just younger moms feel this way…maybe it’s just me! If a fifty year old mother of four walks up to me and as we talk reaches for little Tyler, I don’t even hesitate to let her hold him. But if a loud excitable junior higher jumps around saying, “Please can I hold him!!!!” I’m not very willing to oblige. But in the next moment a polite 10 year old boy says, “May I hold the baby?” and I let him. I think that it has to do with the person asking and how they act to me. If they are loud and seem kind of forward or spastic and crazy I’m hesitant. If they ignore me and always just say “hi” to Tyler but never even talk to me and reach for him, I hold him tighter. I don’t always feel weird about it just usually with people I don’t know.

I know that as Tyler grows up something like this will go away because I’ll just get used to him being around all kinds of people. In the meantime this issue seems to be an obstacle because people keep asking and I keep feeling uncomfortable.

I was thinking about it today, because with Camp Compass going on there always seems to be someone wanting to hold the baby. And what I realized is that if I know someone I feel comfortable because I’m confident that the person is looking out for him, they aren’t yelling in his ears or being too rough with him or going to drop him. I know enough about them to know that he’s fine with them. I always like it when our friends hold him and play with him. Brad held Tyler for the first time yesterday. Not because we weren’t comfortable, he just never had and it was sweet because we could tell that Tyler liked him.

I would think that this is a good and even instinctive response for a mom to have. Maybe it helps him know who it’s okay to be with, I mean I don’t want Tyler to get used to just anyone and going off with strangers. And I think that Bobby and I have a good feel of who Tyler is comfortable with. I can tell pretty easily if Tyler would even like being held by the person anyway. But that is where the problem is–I don’t want to offend people by saying, “I’m really not comfortable…” and I don’t want him to be happy only with us either. Is this something I’ll grow out of or a legitimate concern?

This week I’m helping out with our church’s kids Bible camp “Camp Compass.” Each day’s activities are geared around a theme, this year is a study of God’s love and the specific aspect today was–God’s love is giving. I was encouraged by the way the teachers wanted the campers to recognize all that God has given to them, especially the ultimate gift, the Savior. I often think that the Lord works in themes with me because this concept of giving has been something in the forefront of my thoughts as I’ve encountered it several time the last week in reading or conversation. What is interesting to me is how we cannot give anything to God that He needs, and anything that we have to give, He gave to us in the first place.

In Matt Redman’s song “Breathing the Breath” he writes–

The last couple of weeks, there has been much discussion around the “blogosphere” about where people go when they die if they do not exercise repentance and faith in God. Most commonly this refers to unborn infants, infants, young children and the mentally disabled. Tim Challies wrote a series of thought provoking blogs about this, one being “Original Sin & the Death of Infants.” My father-in-law picked up on the interest and has written several entries on the subject, the first being “Babies in Heaven?”

One thing that troubles me about this discussion is that people seem insistent on having a final answer. Many people simply hear the cases that the outspoken well-known teachers present and decide to stick with the “authoritative” conclusions they make. The conclusion is that any baby or mentally disabled person gains “instant heaven” upon death. I don’t think that Scripture gives us a conclusive “final answer” for our question.

I wish, that on this issue, we could focus on what we do know rather than trying to fill in the blanks with answers that make sense, or seem right to us. We can’t use God’s character to draw our conclusions. But we do this so often, don’t we? We say, “God is love, therefore…” God is gracious, therefore…” Sometimes we take God’s perfect attributes and draw human conclusions from them, conclusions that may not be accurate. God is who He has always been and always will be (Rev. 1:8). Though we may try to ascribe our positions and stances to Him, He never changes. In Isaiah 49:9-10 God says of Himself–

We may not always understand why something is happening, especially situations that include suffering, trials, or death. Instead of coming to a conclusion that makes sense to us or demanding a “final answer” we should consider the God who is at work rather than trying to make sense of what is happening. For example, we say that God is good, then want to conclude that His goodness should mean that there would be no pain or suffering in life. We say that God is love and want this to mean that God would never let bad things happen to His children or send someone to hell. We can so easily warp what we do know to into what we want to be true.

We don’t always have to have a conclusion or an answer to our question. Somehow the statement, “I don’t know, but God does” is not a popular answer. The realities that God is good and loving should be the conclusion to some of our questions. I might need to say, “God is good.” Period. I need to trust Him without knowing what is going to happen or why. I don’t need Him to equal an end for me. He needs to be enough. God alone is hope andis comfort, we don’t need to tack on what we hope will happen at the end of that to try to make ourselves feel better.

If someone is in a trial or suffering a loss (even that of a child), its okay to say, “I don’t know, but God does.” We can rely fully on Him. Not a reliance that says, “I’m trusting you because I know you won’t let this happen” But a trust like Job that submits to Him with an attitude that says, “No matter what happens, even the hard things I can’t understand, I trust you because you are God and I am man.” Job even said “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21) We need to resist the urge to give human answers to the questions we have about what God is doing.