“Daddy, daddy! Can we have permission to go around the neighborhood selling rocks?”
Talk about a proud dad moment!
My children knew the rules – they couldn’t leave the cul-de-sac we lived on without permission. By definition it ended at the stop sign, and by definition this meant they were in line-of-sight from our living room window. Now here’s my middle daughter, asking permission. And as a dad, it’s a beautiful thing when they follow the rules.
But “proud dad moment” was more than that. Sure, the rules were there for their own good, and that was a beautiful thing. More than that, though, here’s my daughter wanting to earn money, and even more than that, do so fearlessly (or blindly) not realizing that selling rocks might be a tough sell.
I was happy to oblige, certainly glad that she and her friends, two neighbor girls, asked for permission, but because I knew something she didn’t: the lesson she would learn from either success or failure would benefit her the rest of her life. She had no way of knowing what was ahead, but I sure did.
Jesus had some moments like being a parent, too. One such was early in His ministry when calling disciples to follow and learn from Him. Some of you might remember the story of Nathanael who was a friend of Philip’s. Philp goes, “Duuude, we’ve found the Messiah, the promised one, Jesus of Nazareth,” and Nathanael replies, “Duuuuuude, can anything good come out of that podunk place?”
Nathanael did go along with the gag, however, and when Jesus sees him, Jesus says, “Look an Israelite in whom there’s no deceit.” Nathanael’s a little stunned going, “What? Have we met somewhere before?” Jesus is like, “Nope, just saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael’s stunned and, crazy enough, believes. He calls Jesus both teacher and King.
Jesus is like, “Dude, you believe just because of that?” and then says to all of them
I tell all of you the solemn truth—you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. John 1:51b, NET
In other words, Jesus knew something they couldn’t know, spiritual youngsters as they were. They probably got the “Son of Man” reference to the passage in Daniel and that He was identifying Himself as the promised Messiah and King, but at this point Jesus hasn’t even delivered His first miracle, it’s probably a good guess to think the disciples really have no idea fully about why Jesus came that first Christmas morning.
And while the text doesn’t say it, I imagine Jesus smiling a daddy-like smile because He knew that even better stuff awaits them. Kind of like I knew that my daughter would learn something awesome that she wouldn’t understand even if I’d tried to explain it.
My daughter did embark on her ‘around-the-neighborhood’ doing what connectors sometimes do…connecting people to an exchange of value, money for something. In this case it was rocks.
And wouldn’t you know it? She and her two friends came home a short while later with three bucks.
“Daddy, daddy, will you take us to the store so each of us can spend a dollar?”
I was all too happy to oblige.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in communications, an award-winning author and speaker, and a passionately bad guitarist. ForTheHope equips on-the-go professionals with biblical principles to engage marketplace relationships with competent humility. On Twitter can follow him @RogerCourville and/or his podcast @JoinForTheHope, or get all updates by email subscription at www.forthehope.org.