The Zone Gathering

Okay, so I don’t post much, but a conversation I had with Tim Elzea yesterday sparked a little something I thought I’d share. We were talking about my kids (a favorite subject) and their schooling. The gist was how do you know how much to give your kids to learn at any given time. (My kids are in a French immersion pre-school 5 days a week.) My sort of off-handed response to Tim was that kids are pretty much unlimited in their capacity to learn. We then went on to talk about something else.
Kids are unlimited. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since the conversation with Tim and, if I may step into PM territory here (and should you read this PM, feel free to shout me down), I would add one more aspect to Neos: unlimited. As parents, we set behavioral boundaries for kids, but their potential and imaginations are unlimited. God creates us that way. Example: on any given day, my daughter, Mackenzie, is planning to grow up to be a princess or a puppy. She is limited by neither genealogy or genetics. Christian (my son) will tell you he is going to be a rock star, knight, garbage man, paper boy, astronaut, Jungle Cruise guy, or Aladdin depending on what mood he’s in. It doesn’t occur to either of them that one job is “more appropriate” or that they can or can’t do something. (We’ll talk to Mackenzie about genetics at some point!) Meanwhile, I have a niece who was born with Down Syndrome. Defying the limits she was suppose to put on her daughter (mostly out of necessity), my sister-in-law (who is one of my heroes) put my niece in a walker at a young age. Babies with Down Syndrome aren’t supposed to be in walkers because they don’t generally have good muscle control. My niece didn’t know that and eventually, like all kids in her situation, realized she could make that thing go, AND DID!! Today, my niece is a swimming champion with over 15 gold medals. Unlimited.
When we are young there is nothing we can’t do. As we grow, we listen to the limits. “You can’t do that.” “Don’t do it that way.” “It’s never been done like that before. You’ll fail.” We internalize the limits and we grow up and grow old. What is worse, we become small people with a small God. I think part of Neos is regaining the limitlessness of youth. Regaining the idea that we have been created by a limitless God to have limitless dreams and imaginations. One of my favorite poets is Shel Silverstein. He wrote a poem called “Listen to the Mustn’ts” that goes like this:
Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child,
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES,
Then listen close to me–
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
I think that’s good theology. See Philippians 4:13, for example. What limits are you listening to? What limits am I listening to? “I’m too old?” “I have a family to think about?” “I have too much invested in where I am.” “It’s too crazy.” “It’s never been done.” “What if I fail?” “It’s too expensive.” The list goes on forever. Remember this: we serve an unlimited God with unlimited resources. A God who looked at a few loaves and fishes and saw a banquet for 5,000 people. A God who looked at a grave and called out life. A God who looked at a void and created a universe, who looked at dust and created humanity. Wow! And we’re made in His image! Unlimited.
So think on this: Mackenzie and Brian are on the back deck of a beach house in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The waves are crashing pretty hard. Mackenzie pulls all her 3 year old self up, puts her hands out towards the sea and says, “Stop waves!” Brian looks down at her: “Mackenzie honey, you can’t stop the ocean.” My lovely little girl looks Daddy straight in the eye with gravity and sympathy and says: “Daddy, Jesus did.” Unlimited.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 1:15 pm and is filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.