And, I believe, the same is true for our relationship with God. I have listened to, watched, and experienced myself how unrealistic expectations about how God should act, what He should do, what a relationship with Him should feel like and accomplish has led to discontent, frustration, conflict, shock, emptiness, dissatisfaction and whining. We assume Jesus must do certain things. We presume that believing in Jesus must feel a certain way all the time. We expect change to occur in a particular way. And when it doesn’t then we have problems with God.

A little while ago I read an article entitled ‘Don’t Carpe Diem‘ by Glennon Melton about the reality of parenting (well worth the read!). And she makes the point that there is a difference between Chronos time and Kairos time. Chronos time is ‘regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s starting at down the clock till bedtime time …. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.’  But Kairos time ‘is God’s time. It’s outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. It’s those magical moments in which time stands still.‘

Here is my thought. Too often we expect believing in Jesus, following Him, praying to Him to be full of Kairos time. But it is not. Our expectations are unrealistic. In fact, it may be days, or weeks, or months or even years of Chronos time. Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it, faith is a ‘long obedience in the same direction.’

So, if you – like me – often get frustrated and angry, whiny and discontent about God and your relationship with Him; perhaps we need to ask whether are expectations are realistic? Biblical?  And maybe, just maybe, we would then have eyes more prone to glimpse those ‘magical kairos moments’ which we can cherish as gifts from God.

I had the opportunity to sit with a group of women who have – how should I put it? –  lived more years than I. We were listening to one another share where God is at work in our hearts and souls and as I listened to these women I was struck and overwhelmed by the beauty of what I was seeing with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears. Here were very accomplished, successful, mature women who have achieved a great deal in their lives … and as they shared their voices and eyes were those of young children who simply loved their Father in Heaven.

It truly was a holy moment. And a holy invitation to keep growing younger as I grow older.

What would it look like to know and embrace the biblical reality of being home with my Father now, today? To  experience the security of being a child at home in a world that is not our home. In other words, I am starting to sense wonder in the words of Jesus,  “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14: 23) Make our home with him. There are questions here: what does this look like? How am I shutting the door on my Father? How can I experience this more fully? Questions worth exploring. But there is also a mysterious wonder here: God Himself dwelling with me, the Son at home in my heart, the intimacy of living with the Trinity, the rest and peace of being home and tasting an eternal reality.

This ‘homeward’ thinking reveals another one of those Kingdom paradoxes: we are at once aliens in a far off land, and children at home with our Father. I have spent 14 years mostly knowing the former, and now long to know more of the latter.

I don’t like this world ‘connection’ used in the realm of our relationship with God. It is a mechanical, even electrical, term. And it doesn’t encourage us to live in the sacred ho-hum of life. From all accounts Brother Julian and Brother Adrian from St. Bonaventure University lived deeply in the sacred ho-hum of life – eating ice cream, driving, working in the garden, taking care of their duties. Twin Franciscan brothers who savored the ordinary and understood that the Christian life is about communing with our Father in the everyday. This is the beauty of being in a relationship with our Father. As Brennan Manning writes in ‘Abba’s Child‘, ‘We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life.’

It is not, therefore, about searching for a better connection with Him on the high places. It is about communing with Him in the ho-hum moments so that they become simply sacred.

‘Communing’ … an older sounding word. But better than ‘connecting’.

Yet, Jesus tells us to receive His Kingdom as a child – helpless and dependent. This is incredibly difficult and counter-intuitive, especially when we are in a stage of life where we are independent, competent, self-sufficient and a significant contributor to this world. It runs against the grain of our heart, mind and actions.

But the life-trajectory for the follower of Jesus is that the older our bodies become the younger our souls become. The more we age physically, the more our souls age younger. Why? Because our faith becomes more child-like as we depend more deeply upon our Heavenly Father. Then, when we come full circle and end up helpless and dependent, once again in diapers; it will simply be a case of our bodies catching up with our souls. Souls that for years have depended deeply upon our Father. Just like a little baby in diapers.

But what about this scene? Some people are bringing little children to Jesus because they want him to simply touch them and bless them. But as they get close those nearest and dearest to Jesus rebuke these people. Tell them to get lost, along with their little children. When Jesus sees them doing this, perhaps when he sees the moms and dads turning away with their kids, he becomes angry with his disciples. Angry. Indignant. Really? Yes, really. Because His little children were prevented from coming to him. And then he goes on to teach that we can only enter His kingdom if we have faith like a little child – a deep trusting faith.

You know what I wonder? Who or what in our lives hinder us from coming to our Heavenly Father with the deep trusting faith of a child? Our own self-sufficiency? The need to be in control? People and communities who tell us to have it all together? Pain we carry that makes it almost impossible to trust anyone, especially a Father? May I suggest that Jesus is just as indignant about these ‘things’ that hinder you from coming to Him, from being picked up in His arms, from being blessed and touched by Him.

It is one thing to have a child-like faith to enter the Kingdom of our Father; it is another think altogether to become more child-like in our faith with each passing year. But here is my sneaking suspicion: if we were to become ever more child-like as we mature in our faith we would experience more of the the wonder of our Father’s Kingdom … and the Father Himself.

Instead, what if the way to deeper maturity is the way into deeper dependence not independence? What if the path of life-giving faith is a path that leads us into life-giving reliance not self-reliance? In other words, in the upside-down-counter-cultural nature of the Gospel we need to become more child-like not more adult-like.

So, in my context the secret to being a wonderful father is to be a wonder-fulled child of my heavenly Father. The more deeply I experience God as my Father, the more I will mature as an earthly father (and husband, and worker, and friend). My identity, then, is to be a ‘Child-father’. Child first, father second.

Last week I gave a talk at a Boston area campus on God being the Father to the fatherless. Basically I was sharing how often as Christians we live as orphans even though we have been made children of God. How our experience of God is rarely that of a Father. How we hardly ever define what it means to be a Christian as simply a child of God. How, in a very real way, our faith is often a father-less one.

Somewhere in my talk, and it wasn’t in my notes, I mentioned that we need to be free to sit in the Father’s lap. To simply be there. Embraced and held by Him. And that the more we mature in the faith, the older we get, the more child-like we should become. The easier it should be to simply sit in the Father’s lap. After the talk someone mentioned this image as at once exciting and also scary. Exciting to think that this is possible. Scary to imagine such a level of intimacy and familiarity with God.

As I think about it, the image feels too brazen, too forward. What about the Fear of the Lord? What about being awestruck by His Majesty? But then again, is not being a child of God what it is all about?

But I love Cheerios. They are, for me, my crown. My fatherhood crown. I pick up Cheerios because my girls drop them, throw them, lose them, spill them. I pick up Cheerios – whole, halved or crumbed – because with each bending of my bad back, and crawling around under the table, I am a father. Normally with a sigh, frown and groan – but also with a song of  joy and contentment. Each Cheerio is a privilege to pick up. Whether my back agrees or not, whether I feel it or not. It is.

I am a father. That is what I am. And I will wear my Cheerios Crown.

This evening I am leading a Bible study for our Large Group on the feeding of the 5000 and I am sure the disciples felt like butter scraped over way too much bread. They were craving a quiet place to rest after their strenuous mission trip, a place of rest that Jesus himself had offered. But there was no escape, and now Jesus was actually pushing them to sacrifice deeper and deeper. I sense a familiar whining tone to their voice.

But perhaps Jesus does know what He is doing. And this stretching scraped thin place they find themselves in is a place of invitation from Jesus. A place of dependence and trust. A place of heavenward glances and heavenly provision. A place where whiney voices are replaced with expectant prayers. A place where the soul is at rest even while it longs for a deeper rest.

Perhaps next time we find ourselves in this place stretched beyond our ability to control; we will be quicker to recognize the invitation?