I tossed my 2-year-old in the air, and he laughed. The kind of infectious laugh that compels you to laugh along. I love doing this with my kids. It’s a way to simulate danger, and help my kids face their tiny fears in a safe, controlled environment full of love and comfort and security (which, side note, should be a goal of all parenting. But that’s another post for another day.)
He goaded me to do it again.
I obliged.
He laughed again.
Then goaded me again.
I, this time, begrudgingly obliged.
He laughed again, with as much gusto as if this was the first time he’d ever experienced this sensation of flying.
Then goaded me again.
By this time I was done.
“Ok buddy, that’s enough. Go play.”
I was feeling not just silly, but bored. Kinda over it. Ready to move to the next thing.
Yet he reflected a nature of God that I don’t. A joy in repetition.
Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name. – Jeremiah 31:35
We should be thankful for this attribute of God. It’s an attribute marked by consistency and reliability. Think about how many crucial parts of our lives depend on this: the sun rising and setting, the earth spinning on its axis. The tides rising and falling, the waves crashing on the shore. The rain falling, the trees growing, the air moving about the surface of the earth. Mundane, everyday occurrences that you aren’t conscious of until you focus on them. But mundane, everyday occurrences that were they to cease, it’s all you’d focus on.
“If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” – Jeremiah 31:36
We value creativity: ideas and processes and buildings and ministries and relationships that are new. We scoff at “more of the same.” When something has remained the same for an extended period of time, we roll our eyes because it’s grown stagnant.
Yet if it weren’t for this attribute of God, we would be doomed. The sun would stop. Earth would stop circling the sun. It would stop raining. And, according to Jeremiah 31:36, we would stop being God’s children. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about repetition. Something we should lean in to, and embrace for its ability to hold life itself together.
So next time your kid asks you to toss them in the air for the hundredth time in a row, be reminded of the nature of God. And find space to be thankful.
