My Daughter Saw It Before I Did

She got there first.

You were coming out with the coffee and she was already down at the step, and she shouted, and by the time you got there she had her whole face about two inches from the pot.

And you looked at the shoot, which was about an inch of green and entirely unremarkable, and then you looked at her.

And it is the second thing that has stayed with you.

You are not being sentimental, and a father undone by his own child's delight has never once been a man making too much of a morning.

Let me say what I think it was, because I suspect you have not put it into words and have been carrying it as a feeling for several days.

She was not managing anything.

That is what her face was doing. There was no part of her checking whether this was a reasonable amount of excitement. She had not consulted anything. The whole of her was in it, at full strength, over an inch of green, and there was nothing held anywhere.

And you watched that, as a man of forty who has not done that in a very long time, and something went through you.

Except ye become as little children

There is a line in Matthew that gets read as a lesson about humility and has something more specific in it.

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3, King James Version)

Become as little children.

Now, this arrives because the disciples have asked who is the greatest, which is an adult question, and Jesus sets a child in the middle of them rather than answering it.

He does not describe what he means. He puts one there and lets them look.

You are being shown something rather than told it, and Scripture has never once explained what a child is like when it could put one in the room instead. Matthew 18:2 sets a child in the midst before the sentence is finished, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a man who watched his daughter at a step on Tuesday.

And here is what I think is in it, and it is not only humility.

You are looking at something the passage refuses to summarize, and a quality shown rather than defined has never once been a quality anybody could argue you out of. Matthew 18:3 sets a child in the midst instead of explaining, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man see what he is actually looking at.

A child has not learned to size their own response yet. That is one of the real differences and it goes early, and nobody teaches it deliberately. Somewhere around eight or nine a person starts checking what an appropriate amount of excitement would be before producing any.

Your daughter has not started. And you watched somebody with the whole apparatus still absent.

You were watching something you used to have, and a child's unmeasured response has never once been the same thing as a child not knowing better. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what he is actually looking at, and the written word puts the child in the middle rather than describing the quality.

And notice what the verse is asking for. Not to admire children. To become as they are.

That is an invitation rather than an observation, and it is put in terms of entering something rather than of improving.

You are being invited into something rather than asked to appreciate it from where you stand, and that verse has never once been a request to look fondly at anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who does the converting that verse names, and the word says become as little children rather than think well of them.

What went through you

Let me be direct about the feeling, because I think naming it correctly matters.

It was not pride in her. That is there, but it is not what did it.

It was recognition and loss at the same time. You saw a response at full volume and knew, immediately and without words, that you cannot produce one, and that you could once, and that you do not know the year it stopped.

That is a real thing and it is worth taking seriously rather than filing under a nice morning with the children.

You are holding something with two halves in it, and a moment of recognition has never once arrived without the loss attached. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man feel both at once, and Matthew 18:3 speaks of becoming as a child again, which implies a distance that has to be crossed.

And here is the part I want you to have, because the loss half can be overstated.

The capacity did not go. What went is the permission.

You still have the machinery. You proved it standing at that step, because what happened in you watching her was not small and was not measured either. The response arrived at full size. It simply arrived about her rather than about the plant.

You are demonstrably still able to be moved at full strength, and a man who has lost the permission has never once lost the capacity along with it. The Spirit of God is the one who was in what went through you on that step, and the written word asks for a becoming rather than a rebuilding from nothing.

Tell her what her face did

So here is the assignment, and it is the harder of the two obvious options.

Tell her what her face did to you, in one sentence, in words she will understand.

Not thank you for showing me. Not that was exciting, was it. Something true, about her, and about what happened in you.

When you shouted about that seed, it made my whole day. That will do.

You are able to tell a child something true about her effect on you, and one plain sentence has never once been too much for a child to carry. Matthew 18:3 puts a child at the center of the answer, and the Holy Spirit is the one on that step while a man says something real to his daughter.

Here is why this rather than anything else.

She showed you something at full strength. And the ordinary adult response is to receive it warmly and give back something measured, which is how a person teaches a child to start measuring, without ever intending to.

Giving her back something true and unmeasured is the one thing available to you that does not do that.

You are able to answer at the size you were given rather than at the size adults use, and a real answer has never once taught a child to be careful. The Holy Spirit is the one present when a man says a true thing to a child, and the word sets the child in the midst without adjusting anything about her.

And say it in ordinary language. Do not explain the second part, about the loss and the permission and the year it stopped. That is for you and not for her.