Stumping a 4 year old

Granville cannot sit for more than 5 minutes without the interaction of an adult. Every day, we long for him to gain more and more independance so we can get some individual time with our other 2 boys. He is the first child, and he is high maintenace and needy.

Working in the yard with him, I found myself remembering the story of a father and his busy son told by Southwestern's Spencer Haye's. I was working as a door to door book salesman, and Spencer delivered the "go into the world" speech to all of us college students.

The story went like this.

A pastor was trying to find some time on a Saturday morning to finish the sermon he was going to deliver the next day. His son, Jack, was only 4 and desperately wanted to play with his father.
"Dad, Dad! explained Jack "The Roberts are going to the zoo, can we go, can we go!"

Like all fathers busily task oriented, the pastor sent young Jack away with a match box car he kept in the desk to preoccupy his son. However, no more than 3 minutes went by when little Jack came back into the study.
"Dad, Dad! explained Jack with T-ball glove in hand.
" Its time to practice my catching, come and catch with me. I need you to catch with me!"

This time, the pastor new he had to find something difficult to keep Jack busy for some time. He noticed in a stack of old magazines there was a printed picture of the world on the cover. The pastor tore the cover off, and ripped the picture into puzzle like pieces. He then gave Jack some tape and said,

"Jack, this is a puzzle, when you have the countries put back in there places....we will go to the zoo and we will eat ice cream, and we will play catch until the sun goes down. "

Surely the pastor thought he had plenty of time, when Jack came walking back in his study after 5 minutes. He held up a perfectly taped picture of the magazine cover with all the countries and states in their correct places. The pastor was amazed.

"Jack, how did you do this so quick?" asked the pastor.

Jack responded. "Dad, I noticed that when you tore the page out, there was a picture of a man on the back."

And then Jack confidently said,"I knew if the man was right Dad, the world will be right."

Hence the finish to the pastors sermon delivered the next day. In order for us to live in today's world, you have got to work on the man!

I shared with Granville, I Timothy 4:12. "Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in Love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. " It starts with us Dad's by working on our relationship with Christ. If we as Dad's are working on the spiritual man, our spiritual world will be right!

And just maybe, when our 4 year olds see us spending time with out heavenly father, they will know how important it is not to disrupt us.

Every Day Dad