Her name is Odie and she is seven and she is very literal, and on a Tuesday she read a verse off the card on the fridge and asked what it meant.
Tomi had the phone in her hand before she had thought anything at all.
She has replayed it about forty times since and the order is always the same. The child speaks. The hand moves. Then, and only then, the thinking starts, and by that point the phone is already unlocked.
She did not look it up in the end. She caught herself, put it face down, and said something, and it was fine and Odie went off satisfied.
But Tomi has not been able to leave it alone.
She is thirty-three and she has been a Christian for twenty-one years and she knows that verse. She has known it since she was twelve. There was nothing in it she needed.
And what she keeps arriving at, and does not like, is that the reach was not about the verse.
It was about being sure before she opened her mouth.
There is a sentence she said to her sister once, years ago, in an argument, and she is embarrassed about it now: I would rather say nothing than say something wrong. She meant it as integrity at the time.
She has been thinking about that sentence for three weeks in connection with a seven-year-old at a fridge.
Because Odie did not need a correct answer. Odie needed her mother's answer, which she was going to carry around for the next fifty years, and which is the reason she asked her mother and not a phone in the first place.
And you may know that reach. And it may be so fast now that you have never once caught it in time.
Jesus names who these things get revealed to
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it three weeks and it was never yours.
You are not unqualified to answer a child. You never were. Scripture has Jesus stating out loud, in prayer, who these things are hidden from and who they are revealed to, and it is the Holy Spirit, not a verified source, who does the revealing. Set it down here at this table. It is heavy and it has been in your hand since Tuesday.
Now hear it, and hear that He is not complaining. He is glad about it, and His Spirit is the one who carries the same gladness into a kitchen.
At that time Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.Matthew 11:25
Revealed them to little children.
He says it as praise. This is not a resigned observation about how the world unfortunately works. It is a thing He thanks His Father for out loud, which means it is deliberate and it is good.
And notice the pairing. Hidden from the wise and learned, revealed to little children. Not withheld from anybody who wanted it. Sorted, on purpose, by a criterion that has nothing to do with equipment.
Odie was asking the right person. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who reveals, and He has never once routed a revelation through a search.
Now let me be careful here, because there is a ditch on this side and I have no intention of putting you in it.
Nothing here says looking things up is bad. It is not. You will look things up this week and you should, and God has given the church careful people who spend their lives making sure we have not misread something, and Scripture is glad of them.
And nothing here says being right does not matter. It does. Saying something wrong to a seven-year-old about God is not nothing, and your caution came from somewhere honorable and I am not going to pretend it did not.
The point is only about the order, and Scripture says these things are revealed to little children while the wise are still checking, and His Spirit is the one who was in the room before the phone was.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. I would rather say nothing than say something wrong is not integrity.
It is a way of never being caught out, and you know that now, and knowing it is not the same as being condemned for it. His Spirit put twenty-one years of that book in you and He is the one who hands a mother the sentence her daughter will carry for fifty years, and He has never once needed you to be certain first.
So here is the turn, and it takes one passage and the phone in another room.
Read one passage with no commentary open beside it. Then stop at the end of the passage.
That is the whole of it. Not a rule about never looking anything up again, which would be silly. Not a promise to be spontaneous with your child, which is not a thing anybody can promise.
One passage, and let what it says to you be the thing you have.
You are the little child in that sentence, and revealing is what He does. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who does it, and neither of them has ever waited for you to confirm it somewhere.
I am not going to tell you what happens next time Odie asks, or that your hand will not move. That belongs to God and He works in His own way and in His own timing, and I will not put a promise in His mouth so this page can end well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is a prayer Jesus prayed out loud in gladness about exactly this.
Read your one passage. Take what it hands you.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing on your own, out loud, in ordinary words. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was yours when you were twelve. Scripture is what these lines stand on, His Spirit is the one who makes them live, and the outcome is His, answered in His own way and in His own timing.
- Hand that went to the phone before my mouth opened, you were faster than my thinking and you are not carefulness. In the name of Jesus I set you down at this table, because I can read this as it reads, and it was written to be understood and I am allowed to take it plainly.
- Sentence about rather saying nothing than saying something wrong, you sounded like integrity for years and Scripture never once backed you. It has Jesus praising His Father out loud that these things are revealed to little children and hidden from the wise.
- Lord, You reveal it Yourself and Your Spirit was in that kitchen before the phone was. You have never needed me certain first, and I am giving my daughter my own answer, in my own words, today.
Matthew 11:25
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.