My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man:
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Beyond each to each by natural piety.
This poem by William Wordsworth makes a fascinating statement. That statement is in the line "The Child is father of the Man." This does not deal, I believe, with the natural progression of age but rather it goes to something deeper. A child will be more appreciative of nature than a grown man will ever be, but it doesn't even have to do so much with that. Let me quote from John Piper to explain.
"When a helpless child is being swept off his feet by the undercurrent on the beach and his father sweeps him up just in time, he does not boast; he hugs." (The Dangerous Duty of Delight)
To ever be a Man, the Man that God wants - a Man of Integrity - one must first be a Child. Often enough I spend my time bragging about my birth in the Christian cradle. Or about the swell theological education I've received overseas. There are so many things for me to boast about that I've grown very adult. That's not always a good thing. An adult can grow so accustomed to nature (as in Wordsworth's poem) or other such things that he misses out on the tremendous value of being a child. Nicodemous had to learn this lesson and it seems I do too. I want to learn to hug God, not to boast. And that if I dare boast that I boast in Him, in what He has done (boasting in the Cross as according to Galatians). There, boasting in Christ, He is being praised or acknowledged and not I. That's the way it should be, but for that to be so, for me to hug God, I must become a Child and then, with time, be the father of Man.
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