School Ain't Over Yet, Sucka!

So my last blog wasn’t as thought out as they normally are, and I went and said something that I’m not so sure of anymore.  The wife and I were talking about this afterward and she brought up an interesting point.

Not to dwell on this terrible scene, but if Caden in fact were to jump off our house, I wrote something to the effect that he wouldn’t fly, he’d fall, regardless of how much faith he had, because you can’t put faith in an incorrect principle and expect it to work out.

Ah but, said Jana, what of Peter the disciple who walked on water because of his faith?  If faith is so strong, can’t it turn the impossible possible?  Parting the Red Sea goes against all natural physical laws, but that happened, so what gives?  So if we were to teach Caden his whole life that if he jumped off our house that he would fly, would he?  His faith would be so pure that it would be just as good as knowledge for him, so what would happen?  Maybe he would fly.  Maybe he could walk on water too.  He hasn’t learned to doubt yet.  (As a side note, is it wrong of me to not want to test out that theory?  Is it demonstrative of a lack of faith on my part?)

Peter (or possibly Caden in his later years)

Parting the Red Sea in The Prince of Egypt

On the other hand, what of all the people out there who put enormous faith into worshipping a false god?  Does their faith make that god suddenly real?  I say unto you, nay!  I guess my question is where is the line between the impossible things that can happen if you believe hard enough, and the impossible things that will never happen, no matter how strong you believe?  Weigh in, posit, hypothesize, submit, propose, opine, whatever.  Go!

School's In, Sucka!

This week I was "babysitting" the kids, as Caden likes to put it when Mom isn't home, and I was trying to get them ready for bed.  After taking Caden to the bathroom and putting a diaper on him for bed, I was running around the house trying to find his pajama pants and couldn't find them.  I only looked for about five minutes and didn't consider them as being lost, just hiding somewhere.  Caden asked what I was doing and I said I couldn't find his pajamas anywhere.  Without missing a beat, he suggested, "Dad should we say a prayer to help find my pajamas?"  You can hear it in your mind, can't you?  The way he ends all his questions on a much higher note than the rest of the sentence cracks me up.

My first thought was, "Well that's a bit overkill, it's not that important, we can find it on our own," but I just said, "Sure, that's a good idea," hoping for a good teaching opportunity.  So he threw his forearm over his eyes and launched into this prayer, appealing to "Henawee Fawdeh" (that's my attempt at spelling out how he says Heavenly Father phonetically), asking for him to "help me and my Dad find my pajamas.  In deh name of Jesus Kwyst, AMEN!!!"  You can guess what happened next; I found the dang pajamas.  And when I gave them to Caden, again without missing a beat, he said another prayer, this time of "thank you for helping us find my pajamas."

This same story has happened on several occasions now, with Caden's lost toys and such, and every time he prays to find something I think, "Oh great, I really hope this praying stuff works."  Then me and wifey start looking everywhere.  But every time, without fail I tell you, he's found what he's after.

I don't want to spell out the obvious lessons that can be taken from this, but I'll probably end up doing just that.  You see, for Caden it is simply a fact that when you pray for help, you get it.  It is not a matter of faith, because it's what he was taught, and it works, so it's knowledge for him.  He doesn't have to exercise faith.  He hasn't lived in the world long enough to know that he could doubt the power of prayer (or anything spiritual), so he doesn't have to even try to believe.  He just knows.

In contrast, I thought I knew, but if I know so well, then why did I doubt?  The temptation is for me to think that the pajamas would have turned up anyway, and that going through the motion of praying was simply to teach Caden a principle, and that it's really just plain luck that it worked out in the end, you know, for Caden's benefit.  But how many times do I have to see prayer work before I realize that when God says "ask and ye shall receive," He's not just frickin whistlin Dixie, He actually means it?  Yeah there was a good teaching opportunity, and Ben just got schooled.

There is something that gives me comfort in all this.  Let's say Caden was taught his whole life that if you jump off the house, you could fly.  Oh he'd fly alright....fly STRAIGHT TO HEAVEN!!!  No amount of believing or faith or knowledge will make a false principle into a true one.  So now, watching Caden's knowledge of prayer work for him, I can rest assured that he has learned a true principle.  Though he does think he can fly off the counter and the table and the stairs and stuff.

PS.  Speaking of Caden, check this out.  ‘Tis the season.