A "God Sighting" at the Grocery Store

Today I went grocery shopping with Paris, my almost 4 year old. I went down each isle, as I had run out of everything we need to eat and have a comfortable family life at home. Paris kept jumping up and down from beside the shopping cart, like a small dog trying to see over a screen door, yipping "Mama can I help, can I help?" I would pick something essential to my children's nutrition or something I knew they would like in their school lunches to know I had thought about them while they were away, and hand it to her to throw in the back of the cart, leaving the heavy and breakable things for me to find their place. Then when it was time to checkout, as I started to unload the cart onto the belt, I heard her cheerful, proud voice sing "Mama here, I'm helping you!" Paris was climbing up the side of the cart, stretching and reaching to take things out of the cart and handing them to me, as I effortlessly passed my own items over to the belt. When she had retrieved all the items she could reach, still climbing up and down with each article, she began asking me to hand her her intended target in the cart. I handed it to her, she climbed down, and said "here Mama, I got this for you!" or "here Mama, I'm helping you!" I could not keep myself from laughing each time because the job would certainly be done faster if I just put the items on the belt myself, and she didn't seem to realize that I was helping her, help me.

It struck me as I was bagging up the groceries, that maybe it was like that for God. He knows what we need to "help Him, help us", and that God could certainly do it all Himself, but maybe He delights in watching us trying to please Him. I certainly hope He is laughing at me and not upset that I think I'm proud when I can "do something all by myself!"

My husband and I were talking about "child-like" faith this morning as our child certainly seems to have a lot of questions. I wonder if part of "child-like" faith is just being God's child and Him delighting in that.

Jan 16, 2009