“Caaa-aaa kisssss?” The inflection of her cadence rises and falls with the same intonation of a question. She has a huge smile. Toddling toward me her head reaches forward, her little torso bent to the side. She awkwardly stumbles to me in the last few steps giggling as her open mouth plants itself onto my chin. She wraps her chubby 12 month arms around me. Laying her head on my shoulder she lightly pats me. I am completely captivated in a moment of rapture. I can hardly believe what I just experienced. For weeks Grace has know “Kisses.” Doug and I would call from across the room, bending down, getting to her height and say: “Can I have a kiss?” We’d smile as she would toddle toward us on her unsure legs making puckering kiss-sounds. Now she had seen us ask so many times that she was doing it…

Ephesians Chapter 5: says “So be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and love one another as Christ loved us.” Realizing that when you become a parent everything in your vision shifts perspective, I have begun to see this verse in a whole new way. So what does this mean? “Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children.” Think about it. Children imitate their parents all the time! Already Doug & I see it in Gracie and she is only a year old. I watch Gracie shift awkwardly from one little leg to another wandering around the kitchen while I prepare dinner. I am laughing because as she toddles she is holding a plastic calculator up at her ear and speaking in most animated fashion: “Abbeee, abbeee, Yep! Oweeowee. Haa-haa! Bye!” And then she reaches up to hand me the “phone” with eyes gesturing as if to say- “It’s for you!” Why? Where does she get that from? Because she sees me and Doug walking around the kitchen with our cell phones to our ears gibbering away! And we are just tickled by it! And as a parent would you not agree that one of the most touching things you might hear your child say is: “I want to be just like you.”?

How amazing that our children already build and develop based on what they see and experience from others. Most especially from their parents. I was thinking how true this is in our faith walk. We base much of our spiritual growth and development on what we see the Lord doing. We are called to imitate God just as children imitate their parents. And imagine how the Lord must feel when we do! He is tickled! He is touched! He feels our love and devotion. We are like Gracie bending at the waist, pressing our faces forward saying “Caaa–aaa kissss?” and we are his dearly loved children.

What then does it mean to imitate my father? It means coming to the realization that God does not just dole out a percentage of his blessings and love to me every year- he gives me a full measure of his blessings and love everyday. For me to imitate my father, then I must be so moved that I also turn around and pour out a full measure of blessings and love just as generously as he does. I see that I have been blessed, so that I might be a blessing— and that blessing God will use to advance His kingdom in this world. That wide-eyed and child-like innocent replication of loving one another with the same extravagant love of Christ is how the world gets transformed!

To imitate God as a dearly loved child, I come to realize that I have been infinitely blessed beyond measure by the creator of the universe, the King of all Kings, the Lord God Almighty and in so awe of that going to him with arms raised in the air saying: Here I am Lord. Send Me. I want to change the world- whatever corner of the world you put me in, whatever jobs you entrust to me, I want to be there doing it to advance your kingdom. So here I am. All that I am. All that I have. Every ounce of my talent. Every minute of my time. Every dime of my treasure. I devote to you, for your purpose to further your kingdom. I want to be a blessing of love to everyone… just like you have been to me…