Can I just... You take my breath away every. single. day.

I've been thinking again.


I was watching my children (preface with this: I work at a daycare) play in the pretend kitchen in one of the classrooms. The one thing that young children always seem to be able to do is to recognize that the plastic toy food looks exactly like whatever food it's supposed to be. They look it over, and automatically try to take a bite out of it. Once they realize it's not what they thought it was, they throw it down and proceed onto another piece of fake food, equally tasty looking and fake as the last... and they do it again. Although the first piece may have been a plastic piece of pie, this next thing surely won't be plastic... it is, afterall, a cookie-- and something completely different, right? So they bite down, and the realization repeats itself.

Recently we have started pretending that we're eating food (invisible air food) of all kinds. One child will say pizza, and each will take turns grabbing their "fill" from my hands. At the whim of each child, the pizza they're grabbing could change to chicken fingers or ice cream, and then change right back to pizza with the next child... each grabbing from the endless supply out of the palms of my hands. Today we were playing that game when my co-worker brought out popsicles for the kids to eat. Before they could see that what the teacher had brought were actual ice pops, they presumed I was still pretending, and began grabbing at my hands for the pretend treats. I then pointed them in the direction of their ice pops, they were delighted, and eagerly scarfed them down. When I proceeded to play the game with them again, saying, "Bryant, do you want some pizza", the boy I was speaking to looked at me and said, "I want some sit down pizza." Which meant, in little kid terms, "I want real pizza."


This whole situation got me thinking. As children of God, we are drawn to the delicious truth God offers us. We've had our fill, we know the taste, we know what it looks like... and often times we pick up stuff that was meant to look like that truth, but doesn't quite cut it because in the end, it's just a plastic imitation of the real thing. Then God sits us down in the middle of our pretending, after we've moved from one false truth to the other, disappointed, delusional, and hungry... and he reminds us what the real thing tastes like. He hands us a piece of that delicious truth, has us sit down and suggests we take a bite of it... and after that, pretending is no good anymore. Nothing can compare to the real, delicious, beautiful truth of it! Playing and imagining something similar but not quite there just can't compare or cut it any longer. We can no further be satisfied with anything less but all the real goodness of that truth God has.


Little kids... wow, what they can show you.


Oh, and that's not all-- but it will have to do for now. Shower time.