Clayton King is one of my best friends in the world and is also my accountability partner. He and I have laughed and cried together over the past 10 years…and talk at least once a week on the phone & ask one another some pretty tough questions.
I have always admired Clayton as a communicator—he is one of the best speakers that I have ever heard. He has the ability to take every day situations and pull lessons out of them.
So this morning I checked my e-mail and I received the following from him—since he doesn’t blog I thought I would post it here…it made me laugh out loud AND challenged me. (Keep in mind when reading this that Clayton and his wife Charie have two boys—Jacob is the oldest…then Joseph.)
“You have to learn to walk before you can run.”
This worn out cliche has been repeated so many times that it is almost meaningless. But there are reasons for cliches. They don’t just create themselves. Stuff happens, consistently, to a large number of people, and phrases are created to describe phenomenons that most people have witnessed. They are shared within the general population and thus, a cliche is created.
They regain a sense of meaning when they actually happen to us or near us, and we are reminded of why they exist in the first place.
That is what just happened to me. Right in the middle of some extremely important ministry endeavor that I was immersed in, right here in this very office from which I type, God slid right up beside me and in essence said “Hey son, you need to see this.”
In the office with me were my two boys. I had tuned them out for just a minute to get some important stuff done. While I was engrossed in that stuff, my one year old Joseph was stammering across the floor, taking his first multiple-steps. He had already been walking, but only one or two steps at a time. This time, his eyes were fixed, his eyebrows were raised, and his lips were wrapped pensively around his slightly protruding tongue. He was in the zone.
I sat there and soaked in the sheer HISTORY of that very moment. My boy was learning to walk. He was teaching himself. Or maybe he was surrendering to the natural instincts of development that God placed in all little boys and girls. He wanted to walk more than anything in the world at that moment. He was intent. His mind, as little as it was, was made up. Nothing would stop him, and there was no turning back.
He would never settle for crawling again. It would no longer satisfy him. He had stood upright. His perspective had changed. All fours would just never do anymore. It was so inefficient. Walking was (going to eventually be) so much faster.
As I sat mesmerized, I thought to myself “I am watching my flesh and blood do something for the first time that will never be the first time again.” I had better remember this because this is the kind of thing parents talk about when they say cliches like “Before you know it, they will be grown” or “You will turn around and wonder where all those years went.” So I decided to watch and appreciate it and let him fall, and get up, and fall, and get up. Undeterred, this went on for a long time. Until his big brother discovered what he was doing.
Jacob went nuts. He ran full-steam toward Joseph and hit him like a linebacker. The blood and carnage ensued along with wild screams and lots of tears. Daddy swooped in for the rescue. I cuddled Jospeh with kisses and hugs. I threatened Jacob with dismemberment and a removal of cartoon priveleges until his adolescence.
In the erupting chaos (which I have learned just kinda comes out of nowhere with children) it dawned on me. Jacob already knows how to run, but Jospeh is just learning to walk. You have to walk before you can run. So, that is what that means…
We use “walk” and “run” to describe how we relate to God. We call it our “walk with The Lord.” Paul called the faith a “race” and said “we run this race with patience.” Things as ordinary as walking and running are how we talk about the relationship we have with God. But we have to learn how. We must start somewhere.
I am pretty sure of this…Joseph will never go backwards. Crawling is so old-school for him now. Once he tasted of the pleasures of walking upright, he was ruined on its goodness. And “before I know it, I will turn around and he will be running around the house!” Then he will be driving, and getting married, and having his own children.
Why do we regress with God? Why do I sometimes move backwards? Why do I crawl so often when I have learned to walk and I have learned to run? The answer? Because I am still a baby. I am weak and undisciplined. At times I cannot find the strength it takes to stand up or move forward. So like a baby, I just wait on my attentive daddy to come pick me up and help me get back on my feet. He holds my hands, helps steer me around dangerous objects, and gives me the support I need to do something I should already know how to do.
I am just like my boy. I am still learning to walk. When I think I have it figured out, I collapse. But that’s allright, too, because I have a PERFECT daddy who is overflowing with grace for me, and He never takes His eyes off of me, not even for a minute. With Him in the room, I am going to be just fine.
Thanks for entertaining the sappy musings of a ruined and proud daddy.
Clayton