Two-year-olds ...

I am currently watching two two-year-old boys. They are great little guys, but they are so full of energy! Energy that is mostly directed in fun, semi-constructive ways - but turns in an instant. Two-year-olds can be laughing together one moment, fighting over a toy the next, then back to friends. It makes ones head spin! They are old enough to clearly express what they want, yet not old enough to have developed sophisticated techniques for hiding their wants ... raw desire, unleashed on an unsuspecting world ...

They can be very kind and tender one moment, and the next, fighting with all their strength over the toy the other one has - the toy that has sat untouched for an hour. The word "mine" seems to be nearly "built-in."

But as I reflect, are we really all that different? Oh, sure we are more mature - meaning perhaps we don't fight over the same things or expose our raw inner feelings so easily. But the same basic urges are there: "I want ..." "You can't" "I must have ... to make me feel right." What hope is there for these two-year-olds (a very loud thump made me jump as they played superman off the coffee table ... must go ... back now) who grow up in a world that seems to urge them to let these urges go and indulge them fully? Parenting would be a very grim task without hope ...

Not hope that they will be better than me ... Not hope that they will earn lots of money, or drive the right car, or live in the right house in the right neighborhood, or even that they will marry the right spouse ... No, hope that they can become more than what they are - more than the sum of their genetics and experiences. But this is not a natural hope, but a hope that they will follow Christ and that He will reside in them - changing them from the inside out. Making them something beyond what the "raw materials" could be ... adding a supernatural element to their re-creation. That's hope for them, for the world, and for me ...