Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Out of the mouth of Caleb

We haven't been a "Harry Potter" family. I'm not sure why really...except that it had a bunch of controversey about it when it first came out and, since our kids weren't at an age to want to read it, we just never really paid all that much attention to it. So, about 8 months ago, Drew (our 10 year old) asked if he could read them. Being that there was magic involved, I told him that I would read them first and if I thought that they were appropriate then he could read them. He has now read 2 of them and I have read all but the last one.
Fast forward to a couple of nights ago. We were having "family night". This is a very uncomforatble time where all 6 of us pile onto our king sized bed and watch a movie. I'm not exactly sure how family night ended up being a dog pile on our bed, but once everyone gets a spot, the arguing about whose foot is in whose nose stops and the movie begins, it's a great time. So a few nights ago, we were watching "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". In this book/movie there is a mirror that Harry finds and when he looks in it he sees his parents. His friend, Ron, sees himself as a great success. Harry is an orphan and keeps going back to the mirror night after night to see his parents and finally one night the headmaster, Dumbledore, finds him there and tells him that the mirror shows the viewer the deepest desires of his heart. He says, "The truly content man would look in the mirror and see only himself". And up pipes Caleb, " I know what I would see in the mirror". My mommy instinct knows that Caleb can be sarcastic and is EXTREMELY funny so I am prepared for something along those lines and he says, "I'd see Jesus".
Outside of the fact that it made me cry, it also made me think really hard about what I would see and I'm not sure that it WOULD be Jesus. I mean, I would WANT it to be, but WOULD it be? What IS the deepest desire of my heart? I'm not sure and a big part of me wouldn't even want to look into that mirror. I'm not sure that I want to know what that mirror would see. But hearing that statement coming from an 8 year old so perfectly, so naturally, so instantly made me desire to have that desire. I want to desire Him above everything else, but things get in the way. The day to day business of living gets in the way. My selfishness gets in the way. My humaness gets in the way. And yet Caleb answered the question of what his heart's deepest desire was in an instant.
I want the nonsense of living to be eclipsed by my desire for Him. I want to be selfish of my time with Him. I want to be like Caleb.