Sadie, my five-year-old granddaughter, recently burst through our door announcing, “Guess what, Gram? I can stay up until EIGHT O’CLOCK now!!!!!”
Her big brown eyes were wide with joy and excitement about reaching this momentous milestone. I was happy for her because I remember what a big deal bedtime was for me when I was a kid. I vividly recall cringing when the theme songs for certain 8 o’clock TV shows started—“Perry Mason” comes to mind—because I knew it would remind my parents it was time to scoot me off to bed.
Even as I chuckled about Sadie’s big announcement, I also thought about how I wish I could go back to those simpler days when my biggest ‘big’ was how late I could stay up.
As we grow older and our loads grow heavier, we can inadvertently let all the wonder leak out of our lives. It’s a challenge to manage the responsibilities of adulthood without losing the simple faith and exuberance of a child, to grow up without growing cynical.
About 20 years ago, God did what I believe was a supernatural work to help me understand His “father heart” for me and for everyone who has been adopted by Him through faith in His Son, Jesus. As that transformation occurred in my relationship with God, I began to see Him less as a “boss” and more as a “daddy.”
If it’s hard for you to imagine being that personal and familiar with the Creator of the Universe, consider this Bible verse, which is just one of several that gives us permission to call God “Abba,” the simplest word in the Hebrew language for “daddy”: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15).
Nevertheless, in spite of my epiphany about my Heavenly Father, I confess I sometimes slip back into feeling like an employee, not a beloved child. When the pressures and worries of “adulting” pile up, I too often stumble around under the load, forgetting that my Father wants me to place those worries on His infinitely bigger shoulders.
Back when God gave me that fresh revelation of His fatherly love for me, I wrote a song called, “Come Be a Child.” If you’ve forgotten, or perhaps never known that God’s arms and heart are open wide for you, I pray these excerpts from my song will encourage you:
Believing in things that cannot be seen, resting in strength beyond our own, trusting that love goes the extra mile, oh, to be a child.
Hoping when reasons for hope are all gone, always believing the good guy will win; stopping to watch the clouds for a while; oh, to be
a child.
Our Father wants us to discover again those things we had when our lives were new.
To dance and to sing and not care who is watching, with joy that is pure and faith that is true.
He says, ‘Come, come be a child again.’
Arms that reach for their Daddy’s love; hearts that yearn for His tender care.
Behind every blessing to see His smile, oh, to be a child.
And He says, ‘Come, come be a child again.’
Christmas should, indeed, be the most wonder-filled time of the year, as we celebrate the incomprehensible truth that our Heavenly Father wants so much for us to be with Him forever that He sent Jesus to rescue us and make a way for us to come home.
Whether we’re five or 95, God invites us all to simply come, come be His child.