The Kid

Carter has this funny thing where when he asks a question, he shakes his head to let you know the answer he's looking for. It's quite nice from the standpoint of you know what would make him happy though he doesn't always get the desired response from mom and dad. For the longest time though he has this 2 question dialogue he throws out. Seems he learned that things could possibly scare him and so he asks if they are okay. It goes like this:

Let's say a dog comes up to us from the neighborhood:
Carter: Dad, he not scare me? (shakes head no)
Me: No, he's a nice dog.
Carter: He happy to see me? (shakes head yes)

This morning on my way in to work I looked in my rearview mirror and there was a cop. I am amazed how sometimes you'll start driving and you notice everything around you and then all of the sudden somebody is behind you and you have no clue when they got there. Anyway, I'm driving along and I'm laughing at myself because I get more conscious of my driving when a cop is tailing me. I wasn't doing anything wrong but then I start second guessing myself, wondering what the speed limit really is and all sorts of dumb things. The dude ended up following me all the way to the turn for the office so needless to say my drive seemed to take 3 times as long.

It got me to thinking though. When we see someone who stands for right, who seems faultless we get more self conscious and thus a little afraid because we don't know if they'll catch our screw up. We can be driving along in complete confidence of what we're doing and then suddenly something comes along and we're all unsure of ourselves.

That got me to thinking about our relationship with God. Sometimes his presence is reassuring, comforting, empowering. There are other times whether because we're doing something wrong or just because his presence takes us by suprise that we're left a little unsure. Unlike Onstar we don't get monthly emails telling us how we're doing and what condition we're in. Sometimes his presence leaves us wondering.

I think there are times when God shows up and we find ourselves asking "He not scare me?" "He happy to see me?". I think it could be said that both could be true. A little fear of the Lord seems Biblical but so does his joy to see us.