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Mustard Seed November/December 2002
Papa No!
Mustard Seed - November/December 2002
One day while babysitting, my three year old grandson Isaiah began screaming and screaming, he wasn't hurt and he didn't see a large spider or anything like that. He was playing with other children and began to scream. The more I asked him what was wrong and to stop screaming, the more he screamed. I took him outside and he kept on screaming. I spanked his well padded bottom (as he was wearing thick clothing) two times, the second time Isaiah looked up at me straight in the eyes and said, "Papa, no." Isaiah was not used to me spanking him. I told him to go on home, (he lives two trailers down from me) as I watched and made sure that he went into his house.
I felt pretty bad about it, especially when Isaiah looked at me and said "papa, no." He calls me Papa. The next day on my usual visit to see him I came into his house and he was walking down a hallway toward me wearing a necktie and looking down at it as he walked toward me. He also had on this fathers lanyard for a security badge that his father wears at work.
I saw a subliminal message there, I felt like Isaiah was emulating his Papa and father. I couldn't help thinking back to the garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26. Jesus, while praying prayed to His Father in verse 39, "0h my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; never the less, not as I will, but as you will."
I thought about how my grandson Isaiah, immediately running toward his house as I told him to go home, in humble obedience, when I saw Isaiah wearing that necktie, he was saying in effect, "I still love you Papa." It was so clear to me. Jesus loved His Father so much that He even went through the crucifixion, so as to fulfill His Father's will and plan, by His only begotten Son, dying on the stake for all of mankind.
Sometimes we do things that are not God's will, or we can face verbal persecution by taking off work for the Sabbath or the annual Holy Days. This can be difficult to endure at times. The thoughts of Christ, crosses our minds, "0h my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me, never the less not as I will, but as you will. As my grandson obeyed and emulated me, we should also obey and emulate Jesus Christ.
John Didymus Pope
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