Here's looking at you, kid
Lockdown has given me the perfect opportunity to dabble in a little Friends watching. Actually who am I kidding? I watch it pretty much constantly in normal life anyway. There’s a scene (you’ll know it) where Monica and Phoebe are planning a surprise party for Rachel, and Phoebe comes to the table with a little scrap of paper of ideas, and Monica a whole ringbinder of plans. Tuscan-style finger food, a sketch of the cake – you know the bit I mean.
Are we ever like that? Do we approach life with a book full of plans? Do we ever grip on to our ringbinder of organisation so tightly that we kind of forget to give God a look in?
Jesus talks about entering the kingdom of God like small children (Matthew 18: 1-4; Mark 10: 13-16). I once was at a church service where the worship was amazing and it was led by quite a tall, large hipster guy with a super powerful voice (Mumford & Sons-style). As I was worshipping, I suddenly noticed he had his son on stage next to him. His tiny son, probably came up to his knee height, was also singing with a microphone and a teeny guitar. It struck me.
How often do I think I’m producing all the amazing music? I’m the one centre stage? When in fact I can’t do anything on my own. Behind me, I have a big, huge God producing all the incredible music and He’s so kind a father that He lets me join in. If I miss a note, it doesn’t matter because He’s there.
With all this uncertainty in the world, we need a real childlike faith. Our Daddy knows what He is doing so we don’t need all the answers. We don’t need to understand everything. In the same way that when you’re a kid, you don’t read a manual on how to live or study how to play. You are free to simply be because you know your parents are looking out for you.
Maybe we need to let go of clutching our ringbinder of plans, let go of our control mindset that says we need to comprehend everything now and approach the throne of God with a childlike trust and simplicity that says ‘I can’t do it God but you can’. ‘I trust you to be the big, beautiful singer and I’ll play my guitar to join in’.
Do we ever have an orphan mindset? A mindset that knows God is good and does good things, but we don’t think He would do that through us. Today, we need to take hold of our identities as adopted sons and daughters of God. He has given you full access to the heavenly throne room through Christ so take hold of your whole identity.
We can pray big prayers today not because we know all the answers, not because we know what’s going on but because our Daddy does and has given us full authority to pray with His Spirit. “And we are sure of this, that He will listen to us whenever we ask for anything in line with His will” (1 John 5:14). And we trust Him with a simple, childlike faith.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5