Saying "No" and The Turtle Life

PART I

There are some questions in life that you need to say, “no” to.  Here’s a short list:

1.     This milk smells bad.  Can you smell it? No.

2.     Mom, can you transform?  No. (or “yes”…depending on how freaked out you want to make your kid)

3.     Dad, can I drink your coffee?  No.  Your head will spin around and pop off.

4.     Can my brother breathe under water?  No, no, no, no!

While this is anything but an exhaustive list, it's made up of questions Laura and I’ve been asked and have, in fact, said “no” to.  In these cases, it really isn’t a problem.  However, I’ve been noticing that saying “no” is becoming a habit.  It’s not the word itself.  It’s the feeling that goes with it that’s becoming habitual.  Fear.  

I’ve been living afraid. 

Now, I’m not talking about phobias (my favorite of which is Arachibutyrophobia: The fear of having peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth).  I’m not talking about fear of the boogy-man or anything on the list that my kids have come up with for bed-time prayers.

            “…And Lord, protect us from the very squeaky stroller……and rattle snakes.  In Jesus name…Amen!”

It’s actually a fear of my kids getting hurt or, frankly, a fear of being inconvenienced.  So while I should “just say no” to questions like, 

“can I touch my brain by shoving this stick up my nose?”

I’ve been saying no to questions like,

 “can we swim to that buoy?”  

And THAT is the problem.  

My brain thinks of all of the possible ways that swimming to a buoy can result in irreparable harm to my son.  I can’t seem to stop it.  He could drown (regardless of the fact that he is wearing a life jacket), he could be eaten by Jaws, he could get sucked into a fourth dimension by an underwater time-matter vortex.  I mean, come on!  Anything is possible. 

And so my gut is to say, “no” instead of seeing it for the adventure that it really is.  But I’m working on it.  I’m learning to change some of my “nos” into “yeses” and see danger as an opportunity for courage.  After all…I can’t keep my kids in a protective shell forever.  

 

PART II

As many of you know, a few weeks ago, my son, Brehm, went to Vacation Bible School for the first time.   In one of their activities they learned movements to go with the songs they were singing during the week.  The movements are kind of like the distant cousin to sign language.  By that I mean that they have some actual sign language and other gestures that are just for show.  

That doesn’t mean that they don’t mean something in sign.  

An example: “you are holy” ended up, unintentionally looking like, “you are snakey”.  

But they’re kids and it’s cute.  

One of the songs was called, “Get Up! Get Up!”   Imagine Hannah Montana singing about The Great Commission.  Some of the lyrics say, “Jesus paid the price, so we could have eternal life.”  Fast forward to this past week.

Brehm is running around the house singing every song he can remember from VBS.  But they are the Brehm versions.  He’s singing the words HE heard, which is a strange blend of phonetics and his available vocabulary.  So, I was being informed by my singing four and half year old, that Jesus, apparently, paid the price so I could have “the turtle life”.

At first I laughed.  

Then I almost cried.  

Because, in the same way I’ve been in the habit of saying “no” to my kids, I realized that most Christians, myself included, are in the habit of saying “no” to God out of fear and not living in faith.  You see, I’ve lived as if I’ve been given the “turtle life” and not “eternal life”.  I’ve lived as if Jesus died on the Cross so that I can create my perfect, protective shell and then hide whenever things get hard or when I feel threatened.  I’m not talking about being confrontational or arguing.  A snapping turtle is still a turtle when it actually counts.  I’m talking about walking in humility but truly apprehending the truths that Jesus allows us to live forever and His perfect love casts out all fear.  This is an area that God has been stretching Laura and me in for almost seven years.  Some of that time, we rose to the challenge.  Other times, we pulled in our heads, arms, and legs and tried to wait God out.  But He’s been persistent because He loves us.  He doesn’t want us to stay in our protective shells forever.  He’s calling us, all of us, to something greater than the turtle life: To His wild, and dangerous adventure of faith.  And, as scary as it can be, I wouldn’t have it any other way.