Learning the Lines

This week my daughter wanted to learn how to mow grass.  I started asking when I found out my wife was pregnant how long it would take before I could pass this torch, but now it seems crazy that she is big enough to begin teaching to mow.  Luckily, with a self-propelled mower and a relatively flat yard, this is a great place to learn.  She caught on quickly to the controls, turning at the end of lines, and she had pretty good control.  But one thing that was a challenge was helping her see the line between the cut grass and the uncut.  Having mowed grass for more than 25 years, this seems somewhat natural to me, I can catch the track the wheel made on the last pass, see how the grass is laying differently from different direction passes, I can catch that stray dandelion that is being stubborn and popping back up uncut.  But how do I communicate all of these things to her in a way that helps train her eyes to see these same nuances?

I was reminded of one of the biggest challenges I faced as a soccer coach.  There were basic skills that I knew.  I knew so deeply because I had rehearsed them for years, and they were natural, instinctual.  But they weren’t innate, they had been learned, but as hard as I tried, I could not remember actually learning these basic skills.  I had to relive those 3 year old practices playing red light/green light, monster, and keep away.  I thought about the drills that seemed to show up through every stage of my development.  I had to remember the stories and games that taught me and shaped me with skills that in my later years were natural and instinctual.  

As I am reading through the Psalms currently, this idea of remembering keeps coming up.  Actually, the word “remember” is used over 200 times in scripture and that doesn’t get into other words like “remind.”  For generations, God’s people are reminded to remember the covenants God had made with their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Then generations later the Israelites were reminded to remember that they were once slaves in Egypt, but God rescued them and provided the land he had promised.  But they were not just reminded of the good things, they remembered how they had failed, lacked trust, turned to idols, and were faithless.  But in their faithlessness, God has been faithful.  Why remember these things?  Because this story of human failing will replay itself, and we will need reminding that God is faithful, God has been faithful, and God will continue to be faithful in the future.

These are stories of people of faith.  A people who were called by God, not because they were great, but because God is gracious.  These stories are our stories.  We live a story faith.  This doesn’t mean it is make believe or a fairy tale, but a faith that is grounded in the story of history.  God showed up in time and space and many times when people were at the end of themselves.  These stories were passed on, and continue on as we understand them and live them.  These are the stories of the Bible.  These stories remind us to remember that when we fail, God is faithful.  When we are weak, God is strong.  When we are broken and weeping, God comforts.  These are the ways we learn the lines, so to say.  We learn from the stories of Scripture how God encounters people.  How does your story fit into God’s story? 

As I continue to learn how to be a parent and a pastor, I am learning to understand God’s story and how I fit into it.  But the next step for me is to talk about these stories, to share how God has worked in the past and how I see God working now in and around me.  As I share these stories, I give my kids context, or the ability to see God’s story unfolding in their life and around them.  We remember together and as we do that they develop the eyes to see the lines, the things they aren’t tuned into yet, but with practice, will become more natural.