Imitation of the Divine

The other day, as I had the rare opportunity to lay on the couch, watching TV, my daughter Zoe came up, and wanted to be with daddy. Though she is awful squirmy, and doesn't make watching TV very easy, I let her up. . .Instead of laying on my lap, or next to me, like she usually does, she headed to the other end of the couch. Once there, she proceeded to lay down too, in perfect imitation of me: hands behind her head, legs crossed, big smile on her face, and eyes on me. Every time I moved, so did she. It was so flattering and beautiful, that it almost made me cry (anyone else notice that having a daughter makes you more of a cry-baby? or am I the only one?). We laid there like that for a few minutes, her matching my every move, enjoying the company of one another.

It was a beautiful picture of what our walk with Christ is supposed to be like: Us, coming to our Father, wanting to move in time with Him, to be in perfect imitation of that which we hold in so much love and awe. We should desire to move when He does, rest when He does, speak when He does, love when He does, all because it is modeled for us perfectly from our Abba Father above. No wonder Jesus said, "Unless you come to me like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." When we come to Him as adults, we come asking questions, wanting our own way, with issues about trust and loyalty and fidelity. . .but when we come as a child, we come in innocence, with complete trust and love and devotion. We come with a desire to imitate our Daddy in every way, because He's the best. We come wanting to make our Daddy proud, cause we're so proud of Him. We come wanting to love Him with all that we are and all that we have, because He loved us first. What a beautiful picture of Christ my daughter gave me! What a wonderful Father we have!