Joy in the Midst of the Storm

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  The door flung open and I whipped my head around.  I was running on the treadmill and was not in the mood to be interrupted.  My wife was carrying my son into the workout room at the hotel and he was not only screaming but flailing his arms and legs.  "He's not sleeping and he's disobeying me," she said.  It was 8:00pm and his bedtime was thirty minutes ago.  I picked him up and carried him down the hall back to the hotel room.  His body language didn't change and he was continuing to flail and scream.  Nearby attendants stared, some giggled, and others gasped.

I was trying not to blush from embarrassment and also trying to take my thoughts captive thinking about all of those horror stories about child protection services barging in and carting their kids off in the ceremonial paddy wagon.

My son Micah was all worked up and I finally had him facing me back in the hotel room.  "Mitaaaaahs Saaaaaaad."  He was doing that heaving, worked up, trying to communicate, toddler speech.  He started to calm down and I was starting to calm down for that matter too.  Embarrassment was finally at bay behind the closed doors of that dark hotel room.

A change of perspective settled in as I began to explain the Gospel to him.  He had been disobedient to mama and there was going to be a penalty for his disobedience.  Joy filled me in that in this moment I had the awesome privilege of sharing the Gospel with him.  He knew he had not listened to mama and that he had not only sinned against her but most importantly sinned against God.  I explained that because of his sin, he was in need of a Savior, and his name was Jesus Christ.  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

Instead of the dread that comes with punishment, discipline, or embarrassment in the overwhelming moment, I realized that something larger was at stake.  The framing and guiding of a child into an understanding of who is source of all truth, the understanding of biblical authority, and an explanation on what is wrong with the world and who the solution is for all of humanity.