Doodles

I made some new friends tonight.

It started with a few older friends. While waiting for the other half of a frisbee team, I pulled out my journal and crayons and all of the pens I could find in my bag. The rules were simple— draw whatever you want with whatever color you want, but as soon as you lift the pen/pencil/crayon off the paper, the journal passes to the next person. We doodled for awhile, but the arrival of new people (and a frisbee) distracted my fellow artists, and they went on to play other games.

I still sat in the middle of the basketball court, and soon new friends joined my game. They were younger friends— 11, 10, 7, and 6, to be precise— which made the doodles a lot more fun. And they were brand-new friends, so we changed the rules of the game. This time, we had to share something about ourselves before doodling.

It was simply grand to sit there and watch faces light up, and stories come out, to see trust given and earned and received, just in a short conversation over a page of odd doodles.

It made me think of conversations with God. He tells me about Himself and I share my heart with Him. The more I know of Him, the more I trust Him, and the more I give myself to Him in surrender, the more I see His trustworthiness. And He enjoys this relationship.

It reminds me of a quote by Jerry Bridges— "Has it yet gripped you that when God looks at you today He sees you clothed in the perfect, sinless obedience of His Son? And that when He says, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased,' He includes you in this embrace?" (The Gospel for Real Life)

And these crazy doodles on the slate of my life, these insanely crazy marks that don't make any sense to me, they are beautiful signs of God's love for me, and the fact that He delights over me.

Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing. —Zephaniah 3:16-17