Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

God as a Runner

One of the highlights of my week occurs at 9:02 each Sunday morning. That’s the moment five-year-old Grace gets to church, and before she even gets her coat off, she comes barreling down the aisle to throw her arms around Daniel and me. She squeals with delight the moment she spots us (most likely because she knows Daniel has some antic up his sleeve to make her laugh), and then she’s heading toward us in an all-out sprint, pink dress flying behind her.

There is something breathtaking about the love of a child—unchecked, unbridled, unselfconscious as it is. At five, Grace doesn’t know to be jaded or cynical; she’s never had her heart broken; she doesn’t love as a means to an end. She just extends loves with the openhearted generosity of a child.

“You know, I feel bad sometimes that Grace shows us so much love,” Daniel told me one Sunday as we headed home from church.

I shot him a sideways glance, utterly befuddled. “What?”

“Well, it’s just that we haven’t done anything to deserve her love.”

My initial thought was to list off all of Daniel’s qualities that endear him to every child he meets—his goofy sense of humor, his knack for asking good questions, his way of making people feel special and dignifying their feelings. But then it hit me: ultimately he’s right. We don’t deserve that kind of love.

Eventually a smile crept across my face. “I guess she’s pretty well named, huh?”

God’s grace in the form of a sprinting five-year-old.

***

The Bible depicts God with a number of metaphors that speak to his reverence and majesty: he is a just judge, a consuming fire, a sovereign King. But what a shock to see the one true God—whose holiness can’t be contained within the walls of even the most extravagant Temple—pictured as a father who loves his wayward child so much he literally runs to him.

While [his son] was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

—Luke 15:20

That image of a father running to a prodigal would be stunning enough on its own (see more in this post). But given the cultural context Jesus was speaking into, it’s even more breathtaking. As one Bible commentator puts it, the father’s action “breaks all Middle Eastern protocol; no father would greet a rebellious son this way.” It would have been degrading to his position, a blow to his pride, yet the father “drapes himself on his son’s neck,” as the Greek text is literally rendered. In other words, God is willing to make a fool of himself to show us his love.

Allow yourself to picture it now: our God as a runner.

He is running toward you, even now.

Will you let him throw his arms around you—those everlasting arms of grace?

grace cropped

Temptation in the Form of a Giant Cookie

I learned a valuable lesson about temptation this week…from a four-year-old, no less.

My brother and sister-in-law were having a few families over for a party, and Lyla, being the little social planner she is, had a vision for the party décor that afternoon. And it did not involve the pirate ship. You see, Mom and Dad had decided to put the play ship in the basement so all the kids could play in it during the party, but Lyla didn’t think it would quite jibe with the vision she had for the basement. (She’s really four. I kid you not.)

And when that girl gets an idea in her head, you can be assured she’ll put up a Captain Hook-worthy battle to try to get her way. Sure enough, she argued with Mom and Dad, landing her promptly in her bedroom to take a rest and think about it.

When it was time to get up, she said to my brother, “Daddy, during rest time I told myself, Think, think, think! And then I decided it was a bad choice to talk back about the pirate ship.”

After my brother picked his jaw up off the floor, he and Lyla made their way downstairs to find just the right spot for the pirate ship. He was pleasantly surprised that more was sinking in to this strong-willed girl’s heart than he’d realized.

But.

The thing about four-year-olds is that they remind us, not so gently, of our humanity.

Just a few hours after my niece’s epiphanic moment, my brother noticed that the basement was just a little too quiet, so he went downstairs to check on Lyla and her two-year-old brother. He arrived just in time to see the two of them scampering down from the tall chair Lyla had dragged across the basement floor. Then he looked up on the counter and saw the evidence.

The giant chocolate chip cookie my sister-in-law had made for the party had two sets of little fingerprints smeared all over it…not to mention some undeniable lick marks. (No doubt they thought they’d get away with it since they hadn’t taken a bite, after all…)

I couldn’t help but laugh (one of the perks of being the non-parental figure), but it wasn’t long before I started pondering how much Lyla sounded like me when it comes to dealing with temptation. How is it that in one situation I can tell myself, Think, think, think and overcome a bad choice, only to cave on something else just moments later, having apparently forgotten everything I’d just learned? And who do I think I’m fooling anyway, assuming God will never notice my fingerprints smeared all over a spot I had no business being in the first place?

If the Bible is any indication, Lyla and I aren’t alone in this. The apostle Paul puts it this way:

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. . . . And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

—Romans 7:15-19

Thankfully there is grace the likes of Paul, who wants to do right but can’t.

There is grace for the likes of me, even as I take two steps forward and one step back.

And yes, there is grace for the likes of strong-willed toddlers. Even those of the cookie-licking variety.pirates

The Joy of “Again!”

“I can’t go to sleep, Daddy,” Lyla said. “My heart is crying.”

My brother and his family were on vacation in Florida, and he’d gone in to check on my three-year-old niece, who was supposed to be napping.

He put his hand on the top of her head. “Why is your heart crying?”

“My heart wants to go in the water. It won’t stop crying until it can go swimming again.”

Never mind the fact that she’d been splashing in the pool all day yesterday, she’d been out the entire morning that day, and tomorrow would be more of the same. Her little heart never tired of this bliss. Again, Daddy!

I have to confess that at this point I’m getting a bit bogged down in my chronological reading. Yes, I love the fact that the psalms are right next to the events that inspired them, and David has enough drama to put Days of Our Lives to shame. The part that’s getting to me is the repetition.

Ever since I hit the book of 2 Samuel, I’ve been getting waves of scriptural déjà vu. About halfway through my daily readings, I find myself stopping to wonder, Didn’t I just read that? And then I realize I’m getting the story a second time, this time from the 1 Chronicles perspective.

I wish I could say I jump at the chance to ingest these truths a second time around, soaking them in over my cup of coffee, but that’s not how things typically pan out. I find myself skimming the repeated sections, my mind wandering toward my ever-lurking to-do list. My sense of efficiency takes offense at such repetition.

But my brother’s story stops me short. Is this what it means to have a childlike faith? To be a child, after all, is to love repetition, to be fully present in the moment. To be a child is to beg your father, “Again! Again!”

G. K. Chesterton poses the idea that children may be onto something spiritual in their love of repetition:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough. . . . It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

I just read David’s song of praise twice—once from 2 Samuel and once from the Psalms. But this time when I got to the repeated bits, I tried to approach them like a child—with delight in the repetition.

I will praise you among the nations;
I will sing praises to your name. . . .
You show unfailing love to your anointed,
to David and all his descendants forever.
—2 Samuel 22:50-51

I will praise you among the nations;
I will sing praises to your name. . . .
You show unfailing love to your anointed,
to David and all his descendants forever.
—Psalm 18:49-50

 

May I take my cue from little Lyla: Again, Daddy! Again!

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

On Lollipops and Intercession

The other day I had the privilege of seeing Hannah, one of my favorite six-year-olds. She and her mom and I were together for a girls’ day out, and as always, Hannah delighted me with her joy for life—telling me her latest knock-knock jokes, impressing me with the new words she knew how to spell, and catching me up on all the big first grade news that had happened since I saw her last.

I’ll never forget six year ago when Hannah’s mom, one of my dear friends, called me after she got her ultrasound results. “Guess what we’re having?” she asked me with that trademark mischief in her voice.

I was confident: “A girl!”

“Yes . . .” There was an, er, pregnant pause.

“And a boy! We’re having twins!

Aside from their tow-headedness, Hannah and Josiah are as different as can be—she loves to read; he loves to build things. She likes to play princess; he likes to play engineer. But you couldn’t find a pair of siblings more loyal than these two.

We were at the store together, and Hannah’s mom let her choose a movie to buy. After carefully scanning the options, she opted for a case covered in pink glitter and hugged it to her chest. We were headed to the checkout line when Hannah paused mid-step. “Mom, I can’t get this one,” she said, her eyes wide. “I don’t think Josiah would like this one.” She promptly returned the movie to the shelf and made a more boy-friendly selection.

I raised my eyebrows and looked at my friend, impressed. Most first-grade princesses I know would rub their brother’s nose in such a victory and never look back.

“She’s always watching out for her brother,” Hannah’s mom told me. “Whenever we go to the bank and get a lollipop, she makes sure to get one for her brother too. She never wants him to miss out on something.”

Just a few days later, I read the account of Moses and his siblings in the book of Numbers. Apparently Aaron and Miriam were razzing him about his choice of a wife (Numbers 12:1-2). God was none too happy about their whining, and he struck Moses’ sister with a skin disease.

Moses’ response fascinates me: he didn’t act justified; he didn’t say, “I told you so.” Instead, he responded with the grace of intercession. He begged God on behalf of the sister who just moments earlier had been giving him grief: “Moses cried out to the LORD, ‘O God, I beg you, please heal her!’” (Numbers 12:13).

When my brothers and sisters in Christ are in trouble, what’s my response? Do I think, Well, they got what was coming to them? Or do I step in before our Father and intercede on their behalf?

In other words, will I be content with my own lollipop, or will I humble myself to beg for one on my sibling’s behalf as well?

I hope someday I’ll be a little more like Hannah.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.