They've Been Right All Along
I was joking around with my dad recently about the stages I've gone through with regard to how I see both my parents.
When I was little, up until about 12 years old, my parents were invincible. They were the smartest, strongest, best people I knew. If I had a question or was struggling with something, they had the answer.
As a teenager, the tides shifted — they became the dumbest, most disconnected idiots on earth. Sharing problems was only something I would do after getting in trouble, or when I was truly desperate.
As a young adult, I knew better than them. They weren't the dumbest people on earth anymore, but they certainly weren't smarter than me. I mean, they grew up in the stone age — how could they relate to being a young adult nowadays? I took their advice, but with a grain of salt.
In my late twenties, after having my first kid, I started to second-guess their stupidity. Were they right about more than I thought? I started to see a glimpse of the why behind some of the things they did. But even then, I still thought I knew better. I thought I was a better parent with my one newborn than they were after 35 years of marriage and raising six kids.
In the last six years, my wife has given birth to three children, with the fourth due in the next few weeks. This has been by far the most transformational six years of my life. Getting married and starting a family has grown me in ways I never imagined, and it's pushed me into a new phase of judgment about my parents — the phase of, "oh my goodness, they've been right all along."
As kids, we love our parents unconditionally. Despite their flaws as humans, little kids mostly don't care. They don't care what you accomplish, what you look like, or who you're friends with. They just love and trust their parents.
After having kids, I've realized what it actually takes to be a good parent — the level of effort and dedication it takes to provide a good, safe, secure life rooted in Christian values. It's a daily commitment, and sometimes downright exhausting. And here's the kicker: your kids don't know the half of it. They understand that you showed up, and that alone helps shape their development, even though they have no idea what it took behind the scenes. They don't understand the life their parents are living just to give them a good one.
As we begin to grow up, we start to question our parents' decisions and who they were as people when they were raising us, without understanding or seeing even a fraction of what they did for us. We tell our parents what we believe they should have done, based on our narrow perspective, and when they don't meet our demands, we resent them.
Looking back at my childhood, I still don't know everything my parents did for me, and I probably never will. When I was a kid and asked my parents for things, the answer was often no. They didn't give me what I asked for a lot, but looking back, I can see that what they gave me instead was beyond anything I could have imagined for myself. They had the full picture. They knew that even if what I was asking for was good, they had something even better in mind.
I saw the same pattern play out in Matthew 14:13-21.
Jesus sees His children suffering, and like any good parent, He drops what He's doing and attends to them — "his heart was moved with pity for them."
His disciples, more of His children, approach Him next, sounding a lot like teenagers: there are too many people, it's too much to handle, it's deserted, it's already late, just send them away so they (and we) can fend for themselves.
The disciples don't yet understand the capability of their master. When Jesus tells them to feed the crowd themselves, they push back. Afterall, five loaves and two fish are all they have. Jesus calmly tells the crowd to sit down and rest, and tells the disciples to bring Him what little they have. The rest is history.
Jesus provided for His children in a way none of them understood was possible. They didn't grasp the inner workings of His heart, or how far His ability to provide for them actually extended. They only understood Him from a narrow perspective, and they made their requests and set their expectations from within that limited view.
Parents understand the needs of their children far better than children understand their own needs. Jesus was the same way when He multiplied the fish and the loaves, and God is the same way for you and me today.
We may question Him. We may not see the full picture of what's going on. But like any good parent, God understands our needs far beyond our own understanding. So many times I've begged God for things, only for Him to give me something different — something far better than what I asked for.
Like a child who doesn't know everything their parents go through to love and care for them, we don't fully know the workings of God. We don't see everything He's doing for us, and we'll probably never fully appreciate His love and goodness. But nothing can separate us from it — no anguish, no distress, no trial we can name. Nothing can separate us from the love and generosity of God, just as a son cannot be separated from the love of a good earthly father.
