Children, buffets and the infinite resources of heaven (godly children)

In my previous godly children post on this blog we talked about how children being children can often teach us more about Kingdom living than all of our cleverness as adults.

Case in point: At home we always dish up set meal portions and so attending an event with a buffet where you can help yourself to all these foodstuffs was a wonder beyond imagination to my children.

Perhaps it’s a British thing but, out of politeness, we hold back from fully filling our plate to ensure others behind us in the queue get enough (or at least don’t accuse us of being greedy). Those who don’t keep to this unwritten rule are always talked about in the most negative of ways, especially when food runs out.

However, my children didn’t abide by this unwritten rule and piled the food high on their plates and even when they hadn’t finished what they had they went back for more again and again and again.

I could feel the embarrassment in me fuelling a volcanic eruption that would put Mount Vesuvius to shame. But then you get that feeling that God is standing by your shoulder, clearing his throat and saying “ahem” to give you a hint that maybe you’re just missing something beautiful….

Are my children being selfish and not thinking of others? Or is it that they simply have no concept of it running out?

Why would they? They’ve been brought up by parents who love them and provide for their needs and so when they see the huge array of food spread out why would they even think of food running out?

They are models for us to how we should relate to our heavenly Father.

We have a Father who gives good gifts to his children (Mt 7:11) – in fact our Father is so good that we who love our children are called evil in comparison. Think for a moment. The universe was created as a love gift for His Son Jesus (Col 1:16) – that’s the extravagance of our Father. And we are now his children (1 Jn 3:1) and co-heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17).

But do we act like adults at a buffet with God? Do we hold back from asking for too much frightened that our father’s heavenly storehouses (Mal 3:10) will run out? That there won’t be enough blessing to go round? Or that there are others who are more in need and so we shouldn’t ask?

Or do we hold back from asking too much so we don’t become too indebted? So we can live “safe” lives?

Or maybe we believe the lie that Satan has been telling from the beginning that our Father is holding out on us? That he can’t be trusted?

Let’s learn from our children that our Father can do far more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20), who loves His children and wants to bless us.

Maybe it’s time to ask to see the riches of Christ poured out so that we will love so much more and become hopeless indebted to the One who’s worthy of it all.

Amen.

Who decides the life of Alfie Evans? (Godly parenting)

Last week, Alfie Evans died after his life support was withdrawn by Alder Hey Children's Hospital after a legal battle with his parents Tom Evans and Kate James.

Alfie had suffered seizures in December 2016 and has been on life support since then. Brain scans showed "catastrophic degradation of his brain tissue" and doctors at Alder Hey believed that further treatment was not only "futile" but also "unkind and inhumane". His parents disagreed and thus the four month legal battle for the life of Alfie Evans began. The public nature of this battle through the high court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) brought it to the attention of the world. Even Pope Francis weighed in and gave Italian citizenship to Alfie and hoped for immediate transfer to one of their hospitals which was denied by the courts as the ruling had been made by then. Unfortunately, because of the "flight risk" the courts then denied the parents the right to take Alfie home.

Who decides the life of Alfie Evans?

Social media has made this a battle between the evil State and the loving parents:

How dare the state overrule the wishes of the parents! Parents are granted the "inalienable natural right to protect the life of their children". How dare they remove basics such as Oxygen and, for a time, water when these are not medical treatments but the essentials of life.

Then there are those who object to Mr Justice Hayden's ruling that says that Alfie's life was futile which riles the pro-life side that believes all life is sacred.

But yet this same State has overruled parents who denied their children blood transfusions (as they were Jehovah's Witnesses) and has also overruled parents who wanted to take their children abroad to euthanasia centres.

Who gets decide the life of children?

Whether that be through cutting them short through euthanasia or artificially extending them through life support.

I won't pretend this is easy and the closest my wife and I have come to this nightmare was with our baby Rachel. She was an ectopic pregnancy and when my wife was admitted to hospital in agony they discovered the cause and prepped her for immediate surgery to remove the "problem". We were overruled as the hospital saw that continued pregnancy would kill my wife.

Who gets to live - my wife or my baby?

But as is often the case in life, we are presented with a false dichotomy and are forced to choose.

You see our children's lives and indeed our own lives are not ours.

They are a loan from God.

We are accountable to God for all the days of our lives and our children's lives and it is Him that we should seek counsel from.

Not the State and not ourselves.

Back to that hospital room where my wife and I were weeping over the hospital's decision. We knew that her life was not ours to take. We called out to God, we begged Him to take Rachel before they did.

And in His graciousness we experienced His peace that was beyond anything we can describe and contrary to the anxiousness we had been experiencing just moments before. And in His mercy we found out afterwards that Rachel had burst the fallopian tube and was already dead before they operated.

And in His infinite love and care he sent an angel to visit my wife after the operation - but that's a story for another time.

When facing these trials let us not get sucked into the world's two choices and end up demanding our rights, but instead call out to the One from whom all life comes and to whom we are accountable.

Father, I ask for You to send your angels to encamp around Tom Evans and Kate James and their family. Give them Your peace that passes all understanding and help them to grieve well. In Jesus' name. Amen.