Where It's All His

C.S. Lewis said the inspiration for the Narnia books came from an image his mind created of a fawn walking by a lamppost holding an umbrella. Well, I’ve not imagined such a thing, but I did see outside my window a young blond-haired boy the age of four walking joyfully under a dinosaur umbrella on a hot, sunny, spring day. For him, it was nothing unusual, For me, it was a reason to smile. I was worried about so much; he so little. I was the adult; he the child. Oh, to be a child—or to have, at least, child-likeness.

The play of a child when no one is watching is beautiful. It is who we all want to be: lost in a world of our own making, where it’s all ours. I left that place long ago, but my children still live there. They haven’t faced the real terrors yet that rob us of make-believe.

The Bible is strangely silent with the English word “smile.” But it’s not with the word “laugh.” And you can’t laugh without smiling. Just as my boy walked through the yard that day, laughing at the things to come, so sits our Lord in the heavens. He laughs at the wicked (Psalm 37:13) as a child in a game of cops and robbers. He holds the nations in his hand as they wriggle and writhe, plotting against him. And he laughs (Psalm 2:4).

I don’t mean to belittle his sovereignty. He’s dealing with real wickedness and real evil, not pretend. I mean, rather, to enhance his bigness. This world with all its fear, visible and invisible, is nothing to King Jesus. “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6).

Children are too big for their world. One day they’ll find it’s too big for them. Their smile will fade. But not for Jesus. He’s far too big for this world. And, with him on our side, he’s able to make even grumps like me smile. Suddenly, the world is manageable again.