Near

"... for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works." - Psalm 73:28

My 3 yr. old dragged a rickety rocking chair into the hallway, turned it over, scrambled up on top of it and then leaped off and sprung into a somersault.  It was pretty impressive.  I hollered, "That was so cool David, do it again!"  His face beamed.

We had just been watching Parkour on Youtube, which is a potentially very painful mixture of gymnastics and stuntman stuff (some call it "freestyle running" as well).  Guys (and girls) were running up buildings, leaping over moving cars and doing things that would have their Moms wringing their hands and chasing them around with wooden spoons.

"Cool!" thought David.  "Cool!" I thought.  David and I had a simultaneous thought: "Let's set up some obstacle and do a twirly-do-dad over it and then flex our muscles like the guys in videos."  So David immediately set about dragging the rocking chair into the hallway, while I began wondering what a 35 year old body can still do.

Following my thought process, I remained on the couch.  Meanwhile David pulled off his stunt with aplomb and the heart of his father rejoiced.

This to me is the essence of being "near to God."  Having the same goals, aspirations and ridiculous antics in mind, and then pulling them off.

When I'm near to God, I know he's smiling on me as I beam over my "Look what I can do!" accomplishments.  It's the joy of life together.  It's the joy of Life.

After the rocking chair stunt, David began to pull out other obstacles.  And being an imaginative little fellow, he pulled out a plastic pretzel and a baby-bottle and attempted to "Parkour" over these innovative stunts.  I can still seem him contorting his body in an attempt to balance on the baby-bottle.  I'm thinking, "Koodos for trying little buddy."  And I'm proud.

I'm also proud of what happened as Mommy was putting him down for bed.  Thinking he was asleep, she began praying over him and apparently thought it would be a good idea to pray about his future spouse.  As soon as the words, "the girl that David will marry" came out of Melissa's mouth his eyes popped wide open, like two little angry saucers in the night, and he said "I'm not going to mawwy a giwl Mommy!  Yuk!"

That's my boy David.  "Beloved."  And near to his father's heart.