“Again !”
It was one of the first words my granddaughter learned…
That word that strikes terror in the hearts of weary adults everywhere…
”Again !”
She’s two now…
It’s still one of her favorite words…
Her grandmother read her a book…
Grandma turned to the last page, read the last word of the last sentence of the last paragraph…
She closed the book with a satisfying “POP” and said with an air of finality… “The end!”
Her granddaughter looked up at her…
There was a moment’s silence, then she smiled and said, “Again!”
My wife read the book a second time…
“The end!”
“Again !”
“It’s your grandfather’s turn to read!”
Jesus says we should come to the father like a little child…
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Mathew 18:3
Why did Jesus say that?
Could God Himself be childlike?
Does God have the unbridled joy of a child who cries, “Do it again!”
What if “Again !” is one of God’s favorite words?
What if like a little child, He says it all the time?
GK Chesterton writes…
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 until he is nearly dead.
For grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
It is possible God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but He never got tired of making them.
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. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy 1943
Since I read that passage, every time I see a duck land on the nearby pond…
Every time I watch a cloud float overhead…
Every time I feel a fresh breeze…
I imagine God, saying with joy and wonder…
“Do it again ! Do it again !”
And with my own sense of joy and wonder refreshed, I join in…
