Daddy's "Helpers"

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Josiah & Selah Building a Fire Truck at Home Depot

These pictures are from a little outing we went on about a month ago to Home Depot. They have a deal once a month where they set up a little project for the kids and you can come and build something (for FREE). It is a fun little experience, but it's not really a building project for the kids. It's a building project for Daddy.

I was thinking about this today and how one of the great things about parenting little kids is asking them to "help" with something, some kind of Daddy chore that's not on their typical list of responsibilities, like helping to cook breakfast, rake leaves, etc. Reality is that I don't really need their help and in fact could probably do it quicker and better (and cleaner) without their help, but I delight in watching the joy they experience in being a part of the "mission," a "mission" greater than themselves. I dread the day of their young childhood/teenage response of no longer seeing this as a delight, but as a duty and the proverbial "Aw, Dad!" that accompanies it. So for now, I delight in their delight.

And I think of how gracious our Father is to us. How ultimately, He doesn't NEED me or my "help" for anything, but delights in giving me the opportunity to build intimacy with Him through participating in a mission greater than myself. He tells us as much in passages like Psalm 50:9-10 where he says, "I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills." I am so grateful that though he doesn't need me, He pleads with me to "sacrifice thank offerings" (vs. 14) to Him, because He knows that there is no greater delight for His children than that they delight in Him.

I don't pretend to think that God needs Brandy and I to adopt. Granted there are 143 million orphans in the world and if just 7% of all people who call themselves Christians were to adopt one, we'd knock that out, but God has already declared Himself to be the "Father of the fatherless," and He'd do a much better job of fathering them than I would (and there'd be less mess). But He gives me the privilege of joining Him in this mission, among many others, and sits back to watch with delight as we delight in Him. How gracious and loving! And how I pray that God will deliver me from my teenage "Aw, Dad!" attitude, forgiving me for the many ways I already do that, and return my heart to the place of childlike joy in asking, "Can I help, Daddy?"

P.S. Within the hour of returning from Home Depot, one of the firetrucks was stickerless, wheel-less and little more than a pile of scrap wood. There's probably an illustration there too.