Children Screaming at God

A couple nights ago, we were out later than usual doing…something. I don’t remember what.

Annette and I had driven separately. On the way home I had Kenni and Caia in my truck, and Annette was going to make a grocery run. That left me in charge of the bedtime routine.

Now, when you’re driving children home after their bedtime, there are two ways things can go. There’s the first way where the children fall asleep in the car and then stay asleep as you carry them in. Lay them gently on their beds, and they peacefully continue their slumber.

Then there’s the second way.

And on this particular night, things went the second way.

The girls fell out cold somewhere along the road home. But as soon as we pulled into the garage, they woke up. The quiet moment quickly dissolved into exhaustion induced hysteria. After carrying them inside, I sat them both on Kenni’s bed to get them into their pajamas. They were both whining at first. Then something triggered one of them into wailing…which then triggered the other one to follow suit.

Pandemonium. Screaming. Kenni’s crying for milk…”I’m thirsty!” Caia’s just crying for sleep. “Do what you must do, but do it NOW!” Holy Moses. There’s nothing I can do to calm them down but just give them what they need and lay them down in their beds.

As I was standing there in my own agony, I was hit with empathy for God. (Not that he needs my empathy, but stick with me here.) God has hundreds of millions of children living ‘in the world,’ and it’s fair to say that a large percentage of them are crying out to Him in one way or another at every moment of every day. Cries for help, repair, restoration, comfort… All totally legitimate and real needs that He is fully capable of fulfilling.

And then I started thinking about my unborn son, Jackson. He’s due sometime in January. But he’s got some challenges to overcome as he gets closer to his big day. He’s missing an umbilical artery, and his mom has just been diagnosed with intrahepatic cholestasis. I’m not going to lie…it’s a little scary. In his own way, I felt like he was screaming at me in that moment, too. “Dad! Pray for me!”

It was a sobering, surreal experience.

My friend Jason had twittered a thought earlier that day that slapped me in the face as I finally got the girls calmed down and into their beds…

When I pray God has an entire eternity to listen….for He is not within time. He labors over my life as an author over his characters. WOW!

Though our own stories are bound by a window of time, God’s is not. He can step in from anywhere in eternity and create our rescue. He can hear all our millions upon millions of simultaneous cries because He freely arranges his own moments according to His own will. [Wow! That's overwhelming!]

Being loved by a God who is trustworthy and desperately interested in meeting our needs is the greatest opportunity available to any man or woman.