All children are artists. The problem is
how to remain an artist once he grows up.
PABLO PICASSO
One day when Alex was in elementary school, he opened the door to go outside to wait for the morning school bus. Hearing the familiar hinges creak, the family escape artist (also known as Pepper the Beagle) bolted out the door. Fortunately, Alex’s family didn’t live on a busy city street. Cornfields, not skyscrapers, surrounded their farmhouse in this rural part of Pennsylvania. There was a better chance of Pepper being hit by an Amish buggy than a speeding SUV.
Little Alex tried to give chase, but Pepper was long gone. As Alex’s mom took him out to wait for the bus, Alex worried Pepper would never return. His mom tried to reassure him that dogs could instinctively find their way home, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was worried too. She didn’t want to make promises she couldn’t keep. It was up to God to bring Pepper home.
Alex said a prayer.
Then, off in the distance, Alex’s big yellow school bus approached from around a bend. Alex could only make out the top half of the bus because the bottom half was hidden by acres of corn. The odd thing was, the bus was moving very slowly, literally crawling along the road.
Alex and his mom wondered what could be the matter. Did the bus have a flat tire? Was it in need of repair?
As the bus came around the bend, Alex and his mom did double double takes. There, in front of the bus, proudly leading it down the middle of the road was…their runaway Beagle! The pup was 100 percent resolute in holding her leadership position, and the bus driver made no effort to honk her away. As the bus neared, Alex could see the driver’s expression—not a trace of irritation or impatience, just a bemused smile.
The bus pulled up to Alex’s driveway. Pepper raced to the front door and went back inside the house. No biggie. Business as usual for Super Dog. This year lead a bus, next year, perhaps drag home a 747?
Alex felt he’d witnessed a miracle. His mom told him Pepper hadn’t run away after all, but had taken the initiative to fetch the bus. As Alex rode to school that morning, he was beaming with pride. Other kids’ dogs fetched slippers or newspapers, but his dog delivered a whole school bus loaded with children. How cool was that?
Alex was so impressed, he wrote an essay about the miraculous event in first grade. It was entitled, “Lending a Helping Paw.” As a budding writer today, Alex remembers his piece about Pepper as his first serious literary work.
I teach screenwriting for a living. It’s the art of writing vivid, succinct word pictures that tell a story. What struck me about Alex’s memory of his Beagle and the school bus were the visuals. I can see the movie poster. Cornfields for as far as the eye can see. A big yellow school bus being led by a Beagle. Pepper strutting like the Music Man leading a parade of 76 trombones. The theme is the big and powerful being humbled and schooled by the small and weak.
It’s a familiar theme in the Bible and there are a lot of great stories to illustrate it. One such story finds Jesus with His disciples, engaged in serious discussion about who can get into the kingdom of heaven—when they are interrupted by a gaggle of eager parents hauling their children over so Jesus can bless them.
The disciples are bugged that their quality time with the Master is being interrupted by a bunch of noisy rugrats. After all, Jesus isn’t some mall Santa and perhaps He was about to reveal a big secret about the kingdom of heaven.
Here’s what the Bible says in Matthew 19:13-15 (NLT): “The disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. But Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.’ And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.”
I can imagine the egg dripping off the faces of the high and mighty disciples! All their years of learning and study, all the hundreds of hours they’d listened to Jesus, all the meditation and heartfelt prayers—all good but in a moment, turned upside down and inside out. Little children leading them to insights about the kingdom of heaven!
And Jesus wasn’t merely instructing the disciples through book knowledge. He had personal experience in the matter of being a gifted child. On a family trip to Jerusalem to attend the Passover festival, 12-year-old Jesus was accidentally left behind by His parents. When they came back to look for Him, they didn’t find Him at the local playground or in the ancient equivalent of a video game arcade—no, they found their adolescent boy in the temple, interacting with an assemblage of religious teachers and wise men. This “tween” wasn’t twiddling His thumbs or daydreaming. The Bible says He was an active participant in the discussion: “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47).
If you want to know the deepest secrets about the kingdom of heaven you need to be like a little child. You need to have the mindset of a Beagle who believed she could fetch and lead a school bus. It is the power of innocence and meekness and utterly childlike faith.
Thank God for dogs and kids. Without them we’d have a much harder time figuring out the great and unsearchable mysteries of God.
And [Jesus] said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).
Have you ever gotten a spiritual insight from a pet or child? What was it? How did it impact your life? How might you need to become more like a little child to walk more closely with God?