God in the Details

1.

It's been a fairly low-interaction week at work. This morning as I got ready to leave I was feeling a bit pitiful about it, and it hit me that I was coming back off a rough holiday weekend expecting to find solace in the people there, and that instead I had found solace even without them. "Thank you, God," I prayed, "for not letting people come to me, so that I wouldn't think my comfort came from anyone but you."

Today at work, I had quality interaction with every single person on my list of those I had been especially relying on to cheer me up. And a new kid, too.

2.

This past Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment, because I've been unusually tired and some people urged me to get that checked. I felt weird when people said they were praying for me...I was just tired, it was nothing major. This morning when I got the blood work results back and everything was okay except for a dip in Vitamin D, I thought, "See, they didn't need to pray because that result was so benign," and then a quick whiplash thought of "what if that result was so benign because they prayed?"

3.

One of the staff members at the residential home that houses my most frequent student visitors gets irritated when they come see me. "Why do you have to go in there all the time?" he snapped at one of the boys today. I think he's under the impression that they're pestering me, whereas in reality their visits are usually the highlight of my day.

It made me think of the disciples, zealously guarding Jesus from annoyances like small children. It made me think, for the first time, about those children. The Pharisees, cream of Jerusalem society, probably wouldn't have let their kids follow Jesus around. And it made me look up the story. In none of the three tellings does it once specify that the children people were bringing were their own flesh and blood.

"Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it," Jesus said. I have often thought that meant that we had to trust like children, with as quick of a readiness to believe what someone they love tells them is true.

After today, I think there's more than that. Because maybe those children being brought to Jesus were not the most well-cared-for and well-educated children. Maybe some of them were the troublemakers of their neighborhoods, and knew it. Maybe some of them had trouble with trust.

But I think if you can tell someone loves you, you want to keep coming back even if you don't understand why.

To enter the kingdom of God is to enter the presence of God. One way we receive it like children is to just keep coming to Him.

4.

It was a good day.