First published in June 2004 

“Roll.. out.. those.. lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…” Is there anyone over the age of five who doesn’t look forward to this time of year? As the days become longer and warmer, and schools begin closing for the season, who among us doesn’t long for those ‘lazy, hazy’ days? Whether our memories are from last year or of decades gone by, those days of enjoying all of the carefree fun of childhood remain etched on our brain cells forever.

Many… but certainly not all… of my memories of summers long ago seem to center around the park and wading pool that the little Village of Hartford had at the time. The park was roughly a block away, diagonally, from where I grew up, and so was a convenient place to meet friends or just go alone to see what was going on. Besides the slides, swings, and monkey-bars was a fairly large self-powered merry-go-round. There were ‘pump’ handles for three people, but you were usually lucky to get one to help… and until I was much older, I just didn’t have enough ‘oomph’ to get going very fast. Indeed, as I recall, I was more prone to push it around up to speed then jump on and bravely try to pump the handles… until it slowed down again.

One of my favorite memories, though, is of the pool just across the street from the park. It was only about twenty-five by fifty feet, and maybe fifteen inches deep at the center… but it was our pool, and we loved it! Whenever it was open, you could always be sure of finding it full of screaming, laughing, happy kids enjoying the cooling treat… (remember, few houses had air-conditioning back then… it was our only way of cooling off!) There were also two pipes towards the center of either end that had fountain heads on them, and every once-in-a-while the ‘powers that be’ would turn them on for something special, and again, we would all make the most of it!

Aahhh… life was so simple and uncomplicated then. Bike riding, puddle jumping, tree climbing, rubber-band airplanes…  it seems to me as if the strongest and fondest memories occurred, roughly, between my first and sixth grade years of school… before that, I was too young to appreciate and remember a whole lot of specifics, and afterwards the sophistication of the world was making inroads to my consciousness.

In Matthew 18:2-4, Jesus, “…called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”

I’ve often wondered about that… I mean, did He intend for us to become as simple or naive as a child? Of course not! What He means is that we are to learn to trust as a child does… openly and without reserve! We are to learn to love as a child does… with our entire being! And we are to become as obedient as a child… humbly, and with an open heart!

Let me quote some examples from the Life Application Commentary…

 

• With your money, avoid schemes which play to your greed (get-rich-quick stock funds) and cooperate with programs that really help the poor, foreigners, and the sick (food pantries, ESL centers, cancer research).
• With your mouth, avoid gossip, backbiting, and lying for advantage. Be someone who tells the truth without exaggeration, who doesn’t bad-mouth friends.
• With your mind, avoid teachers whose foundational commitments exclude the possibility of God, sin, or human freedom. Learn all you can about science, the arts, history, literature, and foreign cultures from teachers who respect biblical ideas or, better yet, who embrace the Bible as true.

Loving Jesus is not about helping ourselves to further our grown-up ambitions… it is about helping and serving others with all of the innocence and devotion of a child. With apologies to J. F. K

‘Ask not what Jesus can do for you…

ask what you can do for Jesus!’