God-thoughts

June 12, 2007

By Randy Mantik

As a teenager, I began to cultivate a love of reading and writing that remains to this day. I follow proudly in the footsteps of my dad, a voracious reader and writer who maintained a journal for many years. He would have hours to think while driving the tractor and tending to the multitude of chores on the farm. A lot of those thoughts and original prose ended up in his journal.

After he was forced to retire from farming due to a heart condition, my dad spent many hours writing. I remember just loving to look into his journal (with his permission!) to see what his latest contribution was.

One time while I was reading his writing, inspiration hit me. In my adolescent scrawl I wrote, “The difference between being a Christian and not being a Christian is if you are in the way of God or in God’s Way.” To be sure he’d know that profound thought was from me, I signed my name, “Randy.”

My dad was so encouraging. Even though I had written uninvited on the front inside page of his journal, he wrote under my words, “Yea! God needs bricks in His house.” And to make it official, he signed his name too: “Rueben.” What a great dad.

My dad’s encouragement of my early writing efforts makes me think of how Jesus was an encourager of children as well. The Pharisees were concerned about the appropriateness of children giving praise to Jesus.

When the chief priests and the teachers of the Law saw the wonderful things Jesus did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “ ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him. ‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise” ?’ ” (Matthew 21:16, NIV).

Because of their pure, uncomplicated faith, God can use children and young people in powerful ways, speaking His God-thoughts through them if we will but stop and listen and give them encouragement.

Such a moment came for me recently. We had gone to visit Grandma and Grandpa Campbell. Caleb and I went to scope out local computer stores and thrift shops, a favorite Mantik male pastime. As we were cruising around, Caleb began to tell me about a particular plane he had flown on the computer in the Microsoft Flight Simulator program.

Suddenly he said, “I’m going to write a devotional about that.”

I was really curious as to what he would come up with. As it turned out, Caleb needed no more prodding from me. As soon as we got back to his grandparents’ house, Caleb asked me to get him set up on the laptop and became immediately immersed in his self-appointed task. Here is some of what came from the heart of our 9-year-old:

Staying On Course With God

I have found that planes and helicopters are complicated to land and helicopters are very complicated to control. But once in my flight simulator I was flying a helicopter and, to my surprise, I kept perfect control! Another time, I was flying a Learjet 45 and did I get a nice surprise — I landed perfectly and taxied to the gate and shut down the engines without a scratch! Even though these things are hard to do, I did them.

In the same way, we have to work hard to keep our spiritual airplanes on course and land them on God’s runway and taxi over to the joys of heaven. I know we all have had the ups and downs of life like going up and down in a helicopter. We also have to work hard to keep our spiritual helicopters in control; otherwise we could find ourselves in one of Satan’s many traps.

No one is perfect at these things but all of you should know the saying, “Do your best.” Every once in a while we may have to “bail out,” but Jesus is our parachute of life and God is the net to save you. Unbelievers are “flying” in the wrong direction, which makes Satan happy but God sad. But God can send out a signal giving you another chance to turn around and start chasing Him. When we hit “turbulence” that’s Satan’s way of saying, “Don’t listen to God, turn to me.”

One young boy, one short encounter with God. Debbie and I are praying God will keep influencing Caleb. The encouragement to all of us is this: Your God-thoughts are important, no matter your age or your position in life. Never consider yourself to be insignificant or stuck in an insignificant place. Tune in to God, hear His voice, and do whatever it is He is telling you to do.

As you are encouraged, encourage others. Be there to build up those who may be weak in faith or who are seemingly small in the Kingdom. Tell them God can use them. “Bricks in His house” is what we all are, with each one no less significant than the other, yet all integral to the strength of the structure.

God is building His people and His kingdom one person, one heart, one God-thought at a time. As we stay on course with God, whether we are 9 years old or 90, the gates of hell shall not, cannot, prevail against it!

Randy Mantik is senior pastor of Crossroads Church of the Assemblies of God in Pembine, Wis.