Family Matters

So the other day I took my youngest son Ty to see Marmaduke. Just me and him. Considering that my wife and I have five children in our home, a little one on one time often has to be planned and calculated like a NASA space shuttle launch, but man is it worth it. So each kid gets personal time whenever possible, but more importantly, me and my wife get a weekly date night every Monday night! Man does that go a long way.

Well anyway, where was I...so me and Ty are at the movies. He loves dogs so he actually made it through the whole 1hour and 22minutes. But one thing never fails. Just like clockwork at the most pivotal climax in the plot, during the most intense part of the movie, his little 4 year old bladder has reached its limit and he taps me and says, "Daddy, I have to go potty. RIGHT NOW!"

So we make our way to the bathroom in record time and he takes care of business. We go back to the theater, find our seats, reposition our little bags of popcorn, and find ourselves watching the calm aftermath of the culmination of the most dramatic part of the movie (that we missed).

Without a care in the world he looks up at me, smiles, and just starts watching what is in front of him as if we have missed nothing. And then I realize it. He has missed nothing. From my perspective, we missed the most important part of the movie, but my perspective is off. From his perspective the most important part of the movie was just being there. It doesn't really matter what "scene" we are on. It just matters that we are there together. Sitting side by side, eating popcorn.

Then I started thinking. You know, that is how it is with God. The scenes come and go. The things we see as so climactic and important are often not the most important thing. The most important thing is stopping to realize that there He is, sitting right by our side, through every scene. And because of that we are going to be OK, no matter what the screen of our life looks like at the moment.