Jesus Refuses to Tie My Shoe for Me

"What do you want me to do?" I asked Jesus as he sat next to me in a lawn chair in my front yard. My son and his friends were more or less playing basketball on the hoop my parents had gotten him for Christmas.

"What do you mean?" Jesus asked.

"I mean, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to be? What would you like me to accomplish before I die?"

My son took the ball, which my parents had also gotten him for Christmas and ran with it toward the basket, flooring one of his friends. He threw it up in the air in the general direction of the basket. It sailed past the backboard and into the driveway. I ran over and grabbed it, stepping around the Hit-away Junior, that Santa had gotten for him, and I tossed it back.

"What do you think I want you to do?" Jesus asked as I sat next to him.

"I think I'm supposed to be Mother Theresa, right? I mean, sell all my belongs and give the money to the poor and follow you, right?"

"Is that what your heart says?"

I didn't say anything. The Jets used to have a pretty good running back named Freeman McNeil. One of the things I remember being said about him was that he ran in such a way that defenders rarely got a square hit on him. It was always more or less a glancing blow. It seemed to me that it would have been frustrating to be a defending against him, if that were the case. Sort of like talking to Jesus.

"I don't know," I said. "That's why I'm asking you."

He looked at the kids playing. The kid next door dibbled off his foot and the ball rolled across the street, which he said meant that my son was guilty of a "pentalty." My son disagreed. After a few seconds, they were back to their hybrid game of rugby and basketball.

"I'm not going to tell you," he said.

I shook my head.

"You're God. You're supposed to answer questions like that when you're asked," I said. I was a little irritated. I mean, here was this guy who made me feel completely inadequate with his questions--a guy that when you talked to him, it felt like you were playing chess against a master--and he wouldn't answer a simple question.

"You're going to tell me what I'm supposed to do?" Jesus said.

"Why not, the fat lady who's the manager at the movie house does when you work there," I said.

"She is my boss," he said. "I could quote you Scripture about submission to authority and obedience, but I don't think you want to hear it."

For the first time since I'd met him, I was angry at Jesus. Here I was asking him about what he wanted me to do, and he was telling me that I didn't care about obedience.

"Sometimes I'd rather have a root canal than to talk to you, you know that?" I said.

He smiled at me. Chuckled a little. Which irritated me more.

"What, it's funny? Do you enjoy it when you make people struggle? Is that it?"

"No," he said. "My word tells you very clearly what you are supposed to do. It's all in there, and you don't spend very much time reading it."

I sighed.

"Why do I need to read it when you are right here with me?" I said.

"You are angry at me," he said.

"Active listening doesn't work on me," I said.

He nodded. My son ran to where we were sitting and held up his right foot. His sneaker was untied and he was breathing heavy, trying to make it look like he was about to fall over from fatigue.

"Hey, Daddy (gasp, gasp), could you (gasp, gasp) tie my shoe (gasp)?"

I sighed again.

"Daniel, you are seven years old. You can tie your own shoe. You know how and I shouldn't have to do it for you," I said. He scowled at me and walked over by his friends and squatted down and tied it.

We sat silently and enjoyed the warm sun beating down on us. Tomorrow, a front was supposed to come through, which would make it rainy and cool...or at least as close to cool as it ever gets in Florida.

"Let me ask you something," Jesus said. "You didn't tie his sneaker for him. Why not?"

"He's seven years old. He can do it himself rather than having me do it all for him."

"There you go," Jesus said.

"Where I go?"

"That's why I won't tell you what I want you to do," He said.

I glanced over at Him.

"When they say that you are supposed to be a good steward of your time, talent, and treasure, that is a good marketing approach, but it's really incomplete. You need to be a steward of your experiences and your intellect, it's using everything that God has given you or that you've gone through," He said.

I used to be on the Stewardship committee at my church, and at one of the meetings I'd been to, if I hadn't said that exact thing, it was close enough to make me blanche at my own words.

"What do you think I want you to do?" Jesus said.

"Get you a beer?"

"Stop hiding behind flippancy," He said, sternly. It was the first time His words to me had been less than gentle. "You are an intelligent, deeply insightful man sometimes. Why do you insist on projecting yourself as less than that?"

My first instinct was to cover His anger at my flippancy with more flippancy. After all, nothing worked so well as a one-liner to divert attention from things I didn't want to deal with.

"What do you think I want you to do?"

"You won't tell me."

"That's right," He said. "So if I won't tell you, what do you think that I want you to do?"

I sat and stared at the lawn. St. Augustinegrass is evil. It isn't really grass, but a crawling weed that would grow really well if you didn't want it to, but given the fact that you want it to, it doesn't. Oh, wretched weed it is, who will save me from its irritating ability to not grow in my front yard?

"I suppose I need to do the work myself," I said.

"I suppose you do," He said.

"Listen to me," Jesus said. "You are 41 years old. And you have come so far in the past three years. You are so much closer now than you were then. Because you looked and you tested and you decided to take in what you have found. How has that process been?"

"It's a pain in the ass," I said.

"Yet you do it," Jesus said. "Why?"

"I have to. I can't not do it. I am compelled to."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Not an acceptable answer. You know. You just need to figure it out. I can't tie your shoe for you. You have to figure out how to tie your own shoe."

We paused and I felt the breeze against my face.

"You have given your children a good home," He said. "You and your wife. She is a wonderful mother and you're a good father. But you can't give them everything. You give them enough that they are in position to figure out what they need to, right? And you are there with them when they mess it up, not fixing it, but holding them and telling them that they aren't alone, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's what I want for you, both as a parent and a child."