Sarah Nyhan

I was at San Antonio College one day. In the Oppenheimer building. Sitting by the elevators where I could look down the long haul that stretched the length of the building.

I saw a father walking with his toddler. And by toddler, I mean a child that was obviously just learning how to get steady on his feet.

And I felt God call me to pay attention.

I watched as the father stood behind the toddler. Smiling the whole time. Hands off. Watching as his little one toddled down the hallway.

Then the toddler turned to go down a small hallway that led to the faculty offices. The toddler didn’t understand where he was headed. The father didn’t bother explaining because the child wouldn’t have understood anyway. The father just jumped in front of the toddler and blocked the toddler from going down the faculty hallway.

The toddler didn’t understand of course. And was very frustrated. The toddler even tried to go around his father on the left and then on the right. But the father just stood there still smiling. Still blocking his child from going down that hallway.

Finally the toddler gave up, turned around, and started going a different direction. The father again jumped behind his toddler and continued to watch over him and smile as the toddler went another way.

Even though it was such a simple act that probably happens millions of times a day around the world, it spoke volumes to me. I felt like God was giving me a picture of how Trinity interacts with us. On several levels.

One is that God is not mad at us. God smiles at us and watches what we do. Is excited to see what we will do.

Think of your own children. You don’t always tell them what to draw. Sometimes it is much more interesting to see what their minds come up with to draw. I think God is the same way. Seeing what we will do with all of this Creation that has been given to us.

Then on another level I thought God was showing me that sometimes God does block our ways. When it is not good for us to go down certain paths. And we don’t always get the explanation because sometimes we are unable to understand all that is going on that we are not aware of.

So the really frustrating thing that I learned from all of this is that yes, I think I have free will to an extent. But I don’t know the extent. I just basically have to follow what I want to do and kind of find out along the way.

I think I can ask for direction, but I think if it doesn’t really matter then I won’t get the direction necessarily. Like the Father watching his son. The Father wasn’t telling the child where to go at all. The child could have gone any direction – except down the faculty hallway.

I think of the Creation story. Where God told Adam to name the animals. Why would God tell Adam to name the animals if God already had the names in mind? What if it amused God to see what Adam came up with? What if a lot of life is like that for us? What if God is pleased to have us pick and decide what we want to do?

I think of the parable of the talents. Remember how several of the men went out and put the talents to use. Some returned a lot, some a little. But the only one that was rebuked was the one who did nothing with what he was given. Instead, he buried the talent out of fear.

So the lesson for me is to just try something, just do something. Above all, don’t sit doing nothing out of fear.