"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, can I..."

Yesterday, I was on a deserted barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Clearwater Florida with my Sheila and daughter Stacy's family. What a great day of vacation watching two of my four grandsons playing on the island. They ran on the beach searching for colorful shells, swam in the ocean with goggles looking for interesting things, and asking their dad Matt countless questions.

The questions never stopped. If Matt didn't answer their question right away, they kept asking...over and over again...until their dad would answer them.

"Daddy, can I run down the beach that way? Daddy, can I go? Daddy, watch me; can I go? Daddy, are you listening? Daddy, I'm going, OK? D-A-D-D-Y!" Noah's questions were constant and relentless...until his dad answered him.

It was almost comical. Noah and Logan kept asking their questions, until their dad gave them an answer. One time Matt said, "Watch this. Logan will probably ask me 100 times if I don't answer." Sure enough, Logan asked the same question three times within the first 60 seconds. It was hilarious!

Sometime during all this questioning, I was reminded about Jesus’ teaching on how we should effectively pray, found in Luke 11:1-13. In that setting with his disciples, He gave three ways for us to connect to God. The first is commonly called the Lord’s Prayer. But it was the second parable that came to my mind. In verses 5-8, Luke notes:

Then He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”

Just like my grandsons Noah and Logan, God invites us to be relentless and bold in our pursuit of Him and His answers on the issues we face in life. It is not a lack of faith that we keep on asking on issues of our concern, but rather a true expression of our faith, that if we can merely hear from God in our hearts, then we can make the best choice in our living.

If we are observant, we can learn a lot from children and others around us in our daily life.