The other day, on a slow walk to my favorite little coffeeshop I passed by a (not-so-young) dad lobbing a baseball to his young boy. Dad appeared patient as the kid caught, missed--and with one throw I noticed, just wasn't paying attention.
This simple, everyday scene struck me as a parable of good parenting. The baseball is a parent's honesty or faith or child-like wonderment or patience or integrity or love or...you fill in the quality. The gentle lob is a paren'ts modeling of that quality, the embodiment of the quality, lived (not just spoken) in front of one's children as a non-coercive invitation to the child to embody the same. And our children? Well, either they catch the message or they try to catch but drop it, or they miss it all together because they're not paying attention.
The parent's challenge includes not giving up. Lobbing that baseball over and over and over again. Likely, with that persistence, the kid will more and more catch the ball, though it may not be til they're out of the house before they catch it consistently.
Is this not God for us? Lobbing that ball of goodness and beauty and love--day after day, year after year--and allowing us all the freedom to catch or drop or just not pay attention. Yeah, yeah, sometimes it's not a lob but a fastball, even a curve ball, and in those moments we'd better be watching, or our distraction will cost us big time.
On your next slow walk through the neighborhood, pay attention. Who knows what parables God wants to preach to you.
