When you were little, what kind of person did you think God expected you to be?
I wish I had shared the outlook of a little boy I know.
We recently celebrated the story of Jesus’s baptism, and when the teacher asked, “I wonder where you are in the story- I wonder what part of the story is about you,” he gave a response I love. (LOVE!!!!)
“I’m like John the Baptist,” he said, “because John was wild, and I’m wild sometimes.”
I’m not sure if he meant wild as in a woodsy kind of guy who likes to eat bugs and sleep outside or wild as in a slightly mischievous guy who likes to sneak extra doughnuts before Sunday school, gobble them down in the corner and then run circles around the air hockey table until the children’s minister pulls him aside and lets him collect himself and come down off his sugar high.
Not that I know anybody like that.
But either way is good for me.
Either way the child is saying, “God picked a wild guy to do God’s work. Yay! So God could pick me too!”
We can be wild and still be part of God’s story. We don’t have to be brave like David ALL THE TIME. (He wasn’t brave all the time either.) We don’t have to be faithful like Sarah ALL THE TIME. (I’m sure she wasn’t faithful all the time either.) Because as much as we try-or don’t try- we know nobody can be perfect all the time. (Well, nobody except One.) We were made human, so we all have weaker, darker moments.
This gives me hope.
I’m so glad that our sacred stories are all about broken people pursued by God to be part of God’s action in the world. And I’m glad for girls and boys who are wild and wise enough to see themselves as part of the story.
