A Child's Perspective

A few weeks ago, we went to the new Chinese buffet in town because my boys love a grand buffet. Not that they necessarily eat enough to make a buffet a good deal (though that day is fast approaching), they just love the extravagence of it...the ability to try a million things and then to ditch their plate and try even more. And Jello. Jello is always a must have at Chinese buffets. Go figure.

This particular buffet was decorated in grand, over-the-top, dare I say it, gaudy style. Fancy Nancy does Chinese decor. Lots of gold plating and two ginormous chandeliers.

Part way through our meal, I noticed Jenna had abandoned her plate and was turned backwards in her chair entranced by something. I asked her what she was looking at and she said with a blissful, breathy sigh, "That light is amazing."

She was right. In all the garishness of the room, I had overlooked the stunning glittery-ness and graceful curves of the monstrous chandelier in the center of the room. But Jenna didn't. She was so taken with it that she had to push aside her dinner and stare.

This time of year, I always like to re-read Max Lucado's classic, "God came near." It gets me every time. In the opening prologue, Max tells the story of a blind man who underwent a complicated surgery, and at age 51, gained his sight. he is utterly amazed and overwhelmed by what he sees. Colors astound him. Stars and sunsets dazzle. Even the simple vapor trail of a passing jet stops him in his tracks.

Max uses this story to illustrate how we can be near something for a lifetime and never really see it. We can see a thousand rainbows yet never marvel at their beauty, or live with a spouse for forty years and never truly glimpse their soul. A person can be good, and moral, and religious and never come face to face with Jesus.

Jesus.

Have you seen Him? With your own eyes and heart? He invites us to come to Him, you know. To see Him for ourselves. To spend time with Him. He even left the glory of Heaven to open a doorway through which we, the lowly can see and experience Him, the author of life.

Wow.

He invites us to take our blinders off, to stop what we are doing, to interrupt our meal just as Jenna did to gaze upward and to bask in His ultimate beauty and grandeour and to blissfully sigh, "Oh, He is amazing!"