When Prayer Isn't Prayer

Parenting Your Parent and Learning Unconditional Love

Imagine you have a son.

Maybe you really do, maybe you really don’t but, either way, imagine you have a son who’s about ten years old. He’s a good boy. Smart. Handsome. Also, maybe, just a touch of a troublemaker. Nothing serious you know just, he teases his sisters a bit too much. He doesn’t always clean up his messes. He’s not the kid in class shooting spitballs… he’s just the one laughing and egging that kid on.

That sort of child. A typical, mid-range American boy.

And, for his birthday, he wants to go ziplining.

Oh man does he want to go ziplining.

He saw a ziplining video on the internet and thought it looked like the coolest thing ever and he’s been asking you about it ever since. “Mom! Can we go ziplining!?” and “Mom! I really want to go ziplining!” and “Mom! Where can we go to go ziplining!? Mom! Mom!”

It’s all you’ve heard for months. Exhausted though that’s made you, last week, like a good parent, with a sly smile on your face you handed him an envelope. He opened it. Taking a few moments to understand what he is seeing, he suddenly looks at you, face beaming up from the brochure for a local “Zipline Adventure.”

“Are we really going!?”

“Yes!” You assure him, both of you excited. “For your birthday in three weeks!”

Great. Awesome. You feel like a million bucks. Parent of the year.

But then…

He keeps on asking about it?

“Are we really going to get to go ziplining?” He asks you one night before bed. You laugh. “Of course we are silly. Didn’t I already promise you?” He smiles. “Yeah.” “Okay then. Go to sleep.”

But…

“Mom? Are you sure we can go ziplining?” You hear again the next morning as he comes down for breakfast.

“The place we’re going, they’re still open and everything right?” He says as you drop him off in carline. “You made sure it’s not really closed?”

“Mom,” as he gets off the bus from school, “should we just call and double check the zipline place to make sure they know we’re coming?”

“Mom,” he says, interrupting your movie. “Am I tall enough to zipline? Did you make sure it’s a place that kids can ride?”

Mom…

Mom…

Mom…

“THOMAS JACOB RABINSKI!!!” You hear yourself scream out of nowhere. “FOR THE LAST TIME, WE ARE GOING ZIPLINING, BUT IF YOU ASK ME ONE MORE TIME…”

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As a parent you often find yourself in situations like that. Something that should be fun, a great memory, turning inexplicably into a nightmare of fighting and fussing for no apparent reason. It can be frustrating. It can make you feel like a failure. Does your child not trust you? Why is he so sure you’re going to get it wrong? Does he think you’re stupid? Are you stupid? At what point did you let him down so badly that he came to consider you failing him the default expectation? Does he even really want to go ziplining anymore? Is he secretly afraid and trying to get out of it? Should you be better at picking up on his emotional cues?

What gives?

The same thing, I think, happens with God.

We’re told by Jesus that…