“Don’t bother me!” I was justified in shouting this. I had things I needed to do and right now wasn’t the time for trying to figure out why this bug we call a cow-killer lived in a hole.
My son Jacob is very inquisitive, maybe no more than any other 8 year-old, but I don’t live with any other 8 year-olds so he seems more curious to me. He could spend hours asking questions, trying to figure out the ‘whys’ and ‘what ifs’. He’s fascinated by nature and physics, although he doesn’t know its physics. He loves thinking up new things, trying to discover something new. He frustrates himself trying to grasp eternity. And into this beautifully innocent mind I shouted, “Don’t bother me!”
That’s the only reason I am here. It’s to be bothered. My role as a parent is to be bothered and troubled with the 100th why question in a row. It’s my responsibility to try to explain why ducks have web feet even when the return question is…”but why do they need to swim, why can’t they just fly like other birds?” It’s my privilege to help shape a young mind, to help encourage a young heart, to help spur on a young spirit.
With each question Jacob is worshipping God. Worship is simply our response to God, and Jacob is following God’s intention for us. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever,”. God placed in us a desire to search something out. Jacob is walking in that. But he isn’t over complicating it either. It’s out of purity to know, to understand, to discover the things revealed. He hasn’t made assumptions that he is trying to prove, he doesn’t have a hypothesis that needs backed up, he hasn’t taken a stand that he now must lie to protect. He simply, innocently wants to know all his Father has to offer.
“Don’t bother me!” What if God said that?
We were made to be bothered.
Deuteronomy 29:29
