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By Jeremy | November 2, 2006
It's been a while since I wrote about my son, so here's a story from this week.
Tuesday night before bed, Judah prayed that I "wouldn't be fired." (Where he learned about being fired I'm not sure.) When I asked him what he meant, he thought for a second and said: "Well, I guess you can't be fired because it's
your dad's church." (Someone's teaching him about nepotism too, I guess.)
"I don't work for my dad's church," I replied, "even though my office is there. I have my own ministry, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. But what is it you do again?"
"I preach and work with ministries around the country that want to help kids like
Generation Xcel does."
With that, Judah put his head on my chest and snuggled extra tight. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you, dad."
"What about me do you want to be like?"
"I want to be a pastor and a lawyer and a preacher. And I want to be a policeman."
"I'm not a policeman."
"But Uncle Jamie is. And I also want to be a fireman, and a farmer,
like Abuelo. And I want a dog and two cats, like Abuelo. That's eight things I want when I grow up."
Diana came and traded places with me. Sixty seconds later she called me back into the room. “Judah has a question for you.â€Â
We had been reading about the prophet Samuel, when God woke him as a boy in the middle of the night to speak to him. “Why don’t I hear God like that?â€Â
"Well, because God speaks to different people differently. Usually he doesn't speak so we can hear him with our ears. We hear him with our hearts."
"But I don't hear him with my heart."
"Yes you do," I offered. "Remember when mommy and daddy walked right past Lonnie, but
you wanted to help him? And when you used to pray that Sam would get better from cancer and run as fast as you and jump as far as you, and
then he did! That's because you heard God's voice in your heart and obeyed."
(Pentecostal alert:) "You mean, is it like when mommy prays in that language I don't understand?"
"No, that's a little different. That's when she prays in God's language and he understands even though we don't. She asked the Holy Spirit to fill her and one way we know that he did is because she can pray in tongues."
"Well, I want to talk to him like that. Can I pray in tongues?"
"We can pray that the Holy Spirit will fill you." So we did, on Tuesday night, well past Judah's bedtime. He was pretty bleary eyed and exhausted, and really didn't get the whole tongues thing. No probelm, we assured him. "That will come in time. For now it's time for you to go to sleep."
Topics: faith, family, judah, legacy, life, prayer | 1 Comment »
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November 3rd, 2006 at 11:10 am
That was great, Judah is something else!