The Most Important Lesson I’ve Learned From a 3-Year Old

Welcome. This is part 2 of a series entitled: “Why Not?” To read part 1, click here.
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I have two sons. The older one thinks he’s Yu Darvish. The younger one thinks he’s Batman. No seriously. Batman.

Not two weeks ago, we hosted a party at our house. A friend of mine introduced himself to my 3-year old:

“Hi little man. I’m Steve.”

His response? “Hey, I’m Batman.”

He has two costumes: one imitating more of a 1960s TV show Batman, and the other imitating Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight. Not a day goes by that I’m walking across the living room or down the hall in our home, and Batman comes darting through from behind a couch, door, or underneath a table. In fact, our homeschool room has two half-walls each with two columns extending from the top of the half-wall to the ceiling. Anyway, it is not uncommon for “Batman” to be found scaling and jumping from the top of a half-wall in order to rescue Gotham from imminent destruction.

Did I mention that I have a 16-month old girl, too, and the first three words she spoke were: “Daddy,” “Momma,” and “Batman?” Not. Even. Making that one up.

My 3-year old boy does most things with a scowl, too. Maybe it’s the Batman in him; but oftentimes, he has this edgy, tough-guy look to him. To me, it’s a look of determination. He strives for independence, and does not wait around expecting stuff to be done for him. In fact, just this morning, I caught him at the kitchen table eating peanut butter out of the jar with his fingers for breakfast. He’d climbed up on the counter, opened the appropriate cabinet, and proceeded to sit at the kitchen table and chow down. At least he was at the table and not on the living room floor!

I tell you all of this as background to this afternoon’s BIG event. Yesterday, with a scowl of course, the kid fiercely purported quite an ostensible declaration: “Mom…Dad…I want to ride my bike without training wheels.”

“Are you sure, Buddy?” we gently responded.

“Yes. I’m ready.” he retorted matter-of-factly.

And this afternoon, he did it. He took off across my wife’s grandparents backyard without training wheels. He peddled, leaned into a fence, fell, steered, braced himself before colliding with a storage shed, fell again, avoided a sideswipe attempt from his big brother, and fell again. But he did it. With that scowl of determination, he kept getting off the ground, kept putting himself back on the bike, and kept charting a course into a new adventure.
Why not? What’s he gonna do: fall? Scrape a knee? Kiss a fence? Twist an ankle? Eat dirt? Yup…count on it. But he’s also going to learn how to apply the brakes, how to maneuver a corner, when to speed up, how to maintain balance, and when to keep peddling even though he feels like he’s about to fall.

So again, I ask: why not?

Why not act on tremendous Spirit-initated, Kingdom-advancing, life-altering ideas? Why not join God in his mission through risky endeavors that are going to cost you something for sure?

Take this important lesson shared by a 3-year old and…

You and your community just start, act, launch, go, jump, begin, commence, create, inaugurate, originate, establish, break ground, initiate, embark on, get after it, plunge into, move, pursue, and go get em!

Why not?

Still learning,