Contributed By: Rev. Mark Breese
(Download Reflection)

Pastor Mark is the Agency Minister and the VP of Ministry & Community partnerships at Community Missions.

Quite often we get caught up in the rush of the world. We become focused on what we believe are matters of great consequence. Then, somewhere down the line, we find out that what had us all worked up was not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

 I think that sometimes people fail to recognize that it is in the small things that “living life” is found.  It is only when we stop looking at all we need to do, and all that needs doing, that we can begin to see our lives as what they truly are—a gift from a God who loves us beyond all measure. It would be good to remember these words of scripture:

“Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren’t you worth much more than birds?” (Matthew 6:26 GNB)

I love the metaphor of birds because of the way flight symbolizes freedom for us. For some people, however, they find it hard to relate to that metaphor and that makes sense. We know enough about birds to understand that they are also very busy and are constantly working to survive. Still, there seems to be a joy to the work for them. It is part of how they go about just being in the universe, and their choices and decisions, their inner life, is pretty much limited in scope. 

That is why I often point to children as a similar example. They get to be childlike because (when things go as they ought to) they are cared for and their needs are met by adults. Therefore, for the child, the imaginative inner life is unending. To them, from the midst of that inner life, their decisions and choices seem grand and consequential—and we adults watch in loving (and maybe even in envious) amusement, as they work through their great matters of consequence. Like with observing the birds, as Jesus suggests, watching children live and play is just as, and maybe even more, instructive.

I think we all need to become more like a child or like a bird. Walk or fly in the knowledge that God is with you! Stop worrying about all the “important” things you have to do and begin to seek out what actually is really important. And if you have trouble doing this, I suggest you spend some time watching or, better still, playing with children. They know what really matters and what does not.

Pastor Mark

Ice Cream^*

We both looked at the child
the old man and I
we both smiled at the boyish
girlish androgyny of  him/her
pushing up the sliding glass door
of the Ice Cream Freezer
and looking — seriously — down,
contemplating a great choice,
a matter of great consequence.

We both smiled
the old man and I
and when our eyes met
he smiled and said,
            “One of each”
and we chuckled
the old man and I
bent over in our age and youth
loving the stranger child
for simply being that.

How much am I like that old man,
how much is he like me.
Do the generations between
really matter
when it comes to true matters of consequence—
like love
for that child
and Ice Cream?

^*© Mark Breese. Used by permission.