Good News, sin, and Goldfish®

My little baby girl has become a full-blown toddler, and she has taught me a lot through this stage of development.

She’s taught me about happiness, joy, and wonder. She’s also taught me about stubbornness . . . and my own sinfulness. 

She doesn’t have a lot of words yet, though she does sign a bit for things like “more.” She also recently learned to say done. But when she doesn’t like you doing something she just kind of grunts “ah! ah! ah!” and shakes her head.

It’s 50% cute, 50% frustrating. Especially when you’re trying to help her but she protests with that shake of her head and “ah! ah! ah!”

Last week I picked Toady up from daycare and I thought I’d give her a snack before I got dinner cooked and while we waited for my wife to get home. I got out her nicest green plastic bowl and the finest snack any toddler can have: Goldfish^® crackers.

Her face lit up when I came around the corner with the bag and bowl in hand. I put a few of the crackers into the bowl as I sat on the couch, and she grabbed the bowl and dug in.

She stood while she shoved the crackers into her face and smacked her lips. The kid was in heaven.

I thought I’d spoil her. “She’s enjoying it so much I’ll fill the whole dang bowl up and let her ruin her dinner. She’s my little girl and she deserves it. ”

As I went to steady the bowl in her hand so I could fill up the bowl those magic words came.

“ah! ah! ah!”

“Toad,” I said, “it’s ok. I’m giving you more. Look!” I shook the bag to try and get her to understand.

I reached for the bowl again. “AH! AH! AH!!!” She began to shake her head.

I tried once more to calm her, help her understand, and fill up the bowl.

Full. Blown. Toddler. Meltdown.

The result was a bowl upside down on the ground, and the few crackers she had left spilled out.

She’s just like her dad . . .

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,” Jesus says in John 10:10 (NRSV).

Some other translations say, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” (NIV), and “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life,” (NLT).

The point is that word ‘abundantly.’ It means ‘superior in quality’ and ‘by implication, excessive.’ Jesus came that we may not only experience life but that we would experience life in a way that we couldn’t even imagine; that we would experience life in excess of anything we could imagine. A life that is bigger, better, more.

My toddler has five Goldfish crackers – whoops, Goldfish® – and I’m trying to fill the thing to the brim and give her an amazing experience and she thinks that my momentarily taking control of her bowl is going to somehow make her miss out on what she already has. She turns from me, not realizing what’s coming. Not only does she miss out on what she has as a result of her spilling her bowl everywhere, but she missed out on the abundance of my blessing I was trying to pour out on her.

I don’t really need to keep going, right?

You can’t take God’s blessing if you refuse to submit to Him – if you turn violently from Him and insist on doing things your way.

The whole point of the first half of John 10 is listening to Jesus, the shepherd’s, voice. And, that there’s another voice at work.

John 10:10 starts with, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” and then continues “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Usually, we end up listening to one that tells us to resist the shepherd’s voice; to not give up what we have; that somehow convinces us that less is more. The one that isn’t actually concerned about life – especially our lives – but has come to simply steal from us. See, that’s the funny part. We get so worried that submitting to the shepherd’s voice is going to take something from us, but it’s the thief’s voice we end up listening to.

There is good news wrapped up in that voice of Jesus. A life of abundance. A life filled with richness and satisfaction. All we simply need to do is listen, believe, and follow.