David’s Toy Story

David is my most lovable boy. (Now dun say I’m biased. I’ve another unique description for my youngest son). I juz dun know why, but I’ve such strong affiliation for this son of mine. I seem to be able to see thru his spirit at times, when I relate his with my childhood years. I could see my image (personality) in him, yet I also felt this lovable boy of mine is uniquely made by God with his own attributes, growing up with his sets of experiences. Arguably, David and I have lots of similarities, that I could resonate with:

First, he is a middle child. Some says middle child has its so-called middle child syndrome. Neither here nor there. Not given the authority of the eldest, nor dotted as the youngest. Sandwiched by all. Neglected. Feel less appreciated and loved. But in my family line, its somehow the other way round. I think my dad had given me the most attention as a middle child. Why? Its God-arranged time factor I would say. My growing up years saw my dad energetically pressurized my elder brother to fulfill many of his expectation, yet when my younger brother was born, my dad had grew old and lack the stamina to get involved in meaningful fatherhood. So I enjoyed my father’s favor in his prime years, where he brought me around for good food, fun rides and exclusive excursion. I do still remember those moments. And I think I’m doing the same to David, for reasons I dun realize consciously at times.

Second, I think as many pple would have known, like me, David is a dreamer. He dreams in school, dreams at home, dreams when he does schoolwork. And he gets mesmerized by things easily. He is the only child who gets mesmerized by TV programs, by toys, by beautiful things, by toy cars esp. He carries toy cars in his pockets, when he goes to school. And if he likes a movie, he can watch it over and over again for 20 over times, feeling excited abt the storyline as if it’s the first time he watches it each time. “He juz by nature gets mesmerized by things”, I always tell my wife. (Though I hope he dun get mesmerized by girls easily…J) Well, at least I think he is very focus (in the good sense). Sometimes, being focus and dreaming is juz one thin line away. It depends whether you’re taken charge by the Holy Spirit or Evil Spirit.

And I believe the thing that capture my heart most abt David, is his shyness towards outsiders and boldness towards his father. He is totally not good with getting the attention of outsiders (or pple he doesn’t know well enough. He can never perform boldly in front of a stage as proven through the previous 2 years of his pre-school concerts). Quite ‘stony’ in fact, when u get him to dance and sing. But with his father, he tells his inmost thoughts. Even if he lies, he would give me a grin and honestly admit he lied. He tells me how he feels, but of course he does have difficulty bringing his full feelings across to me, as he is not good in expressing himself. (But no sweet-talks, no packaging of words, what I hear from him is what I get. Sometimes when I carry him firmly with my shoulders wrap around him, he’ll juz blurt: “I love you daddy becoz u are my daddy. Even if u dun buy me toys, I’ll still love u”). Knowing he is someone who doesn’t sweet-talk, that really ‘melt’ my heart. Occasionally, when he heard a story abt Jesus and felt the Lord’s awesomeness, he would naively mumble to himself, “I belong to Jesus, I wanna follow Jesus.” And his shyness and sincerity is what really drew me to him. There is a yearning in me to take him seriously and value him, even though he may be somewhat slow to learn at times.

But like every child who grew up, I know David is faced with the ‘enemy’ within him. The good and lovable nature in him is never adequate enough for him to overcome the adversity in his life (or in this world). I have come this far, and I know what David truly need to grow from boy to man.

Let me share a recent story abt David:

Abt 3 months ago, our whole family watched Toy Story 2 together during one of our relaxing night. David was mesmerized by it. So we subsequently went on to watch Toy Story 1 and 3. (If you’ve watched Toy Story, you’ll know there’re 3 episodes to it). I watched the movies with amusement, but David was captivated. Since then, he was in love with ‘Buzz’, the second main character in this story. (In fact, ‘Woody’ (the cowboy) is the first main character in the show, but David has no eyes for it). Reason being: ‘Buzz’ has wings and he thought it could really fly. The  unique thing abt David is: When he likes something, it doesn’t matter even if that is not the primary main character, he JUZ LIKES IT. Since then, my lovable boy was pressing me day and night to buy that big, bumpy ‘BUZZ’ for him. So last month, our dear sister Huijun was going to China, and I asked her if she could buy me some cheap Toy Story characters from there (they cost a bomb in Spore!). So our dear sister came back with those few characters, and David was overjoyed. The toys arrived when David was down with a fever. His excitement quickly overwhelms his fever. And being sick, he was given the privilege to stay home with the toys all for himself while his siblings have to be at school. He plays with them, eats with them, sleeps with them, even watches TV programs with them. The toys juz cannot be out of his sight! Sometimes it is amusing to observe how little kids cherish their toys so much. It really brings back memories.

Juz when David was feeling the full satisfaction of his new toys, I called him over and engaged him in some father-and-son cuddling talks. “David my boy, are you happy with the toys God has given you?” He nodded and blurted out naively: “Jesus knows I love ‘buzz’, that’s why HE asked Auntie Huijun to buy it for me” (something I have inculcated into him for the past few days). “So Jesus is the one who loves you most, knows you best and give you the best, right son?” I reassured. He nodded readily. Then I took a twist and asked him firmly, “Yes my son, Jesus always gives you the best. So what if Jesus say now: ‘David, now I want to take this ‘buzz’ away from you. Can you give it to me?’ Can you let Jesus take it away then?”  Then my son’s expression took a turn from an assuring one to a meek one: “Huhhhh…dun want lah…I want this toy leh…” Then I give him a mild challenge: “Dear son, didn’t you say Jesus always give you the best? Jesus will never go wrong. If HE asked you to give Him this one, HE will definitely give you a better one. Right?” “Huhhh….But I want Jesus to give me this one leh….I want this one. Can daddy?” He passively retorted.

I tried a few times to convince him mildly, trying to see if he would let go of his ‘most-loved now’ for Jesus. Then I saw that he is not ready. So I took this opportunity to assure him: “David, of course since Jesus has given this to you, HE will not take it away for no reason. And Jesus is definitely happy when HE sees you enjoying the toys HE has given you.” Then I went on to share one real incident with him: “David, u know, when daddy was a little kid like you, daddy’s favorite toy was transformer. Daddy longed to have one transformer, and one day daddy’s aunt brought me a transformer (robot), which I love so much. Daddy was so mesmerized by that new toy, that daddy would eat with it, sleep with it, and even bath with it. Daddy was playing with it all the time so much so that I would be playing with it from the moment I woke up till sleep, skip my meals, deaf to grandparents instructions, etc. A morning came when granddad was calling me to have breakfast umpteen times, and I simply turn a deaf ear. Granddad came with a wooden stick, give a hard knock on my robot, and its legs broke! I was sooooo sad after that, coz I love the robot so much. I carry the broken toy around for a few days, and gave it up eventually. When I grew up, I begin to understand why God broke it, becoz I was putting my heart in it above everything else. Then daddy begins to understand that if God never take it away, it will do more harm to me. Moreover, God can always give me a better one, anytime. And Daddy indeed had a lot of better ones.”

David listened attentively, seemingly to empathize with the loss of my robot more. But I know he is still young, and it will take many more years, experiences and hardship for him to realize the meaning of letting go, see God Himself as the best, and enjoy the EVER-BEST which HE has already given us in Him.

Ha…Guess what. A few days later. I saw David has kinda cool down in his interest with ‘Buzz’ and the rest of the toys, though he was still playing with it frequently. So I asked him that same qns again: “Dear son, if Jesus wants ‘Buzz’, can you give it to Him?” To my amazement, David said: “Yes daddy. If Jesus wants it, I can give it to Him.” I was ambivalent. So I asked: “Oh, how come? I thought you love this toy so much? Wasn’t ‘Buzz’ yr favorite?” David responded with a pure-hearted claim: “Becoz I want to give it to Jesus. He loves me mah.”  “Really?!” I reaffirmed, almost wanting to give him a big big kiss and hug. Then my dear boy let out an equally honest respond, “Becoz ‘Buzz’ cannot fly. It is only a toy, it cannot fly!” Haha…my lovable boy, how honest and sincere. So its becoz u realize it couldn’t fly, not becoz u love Jesus more…haha….But I stop short there. I’ve been thru, and I know the toughest hurdle for a person is not his ability to sacrifice, but to overcome his flesh. Flesh is always there in us. This only happened to be one incident where I could relate to David abt letting go of his flesh. But flesh has many different faces in different situation. In fact, flesh is the real spiritual hurdle, that turns us our way, our desire, our pride, our opinion, our way of offering to God, our way of living a Christian life. Knowing what is flesh, dying to it and being made alive in Christ Jesus is the very thing I would want David to comprehend since young, and throughout his life.

As I ponder, I realize something did get into my boy. Yes, he may have felt less for ‘Buzz’, and that’s what seemingly made him give it up for Jesus. But unknowingly, he has also internalize the loving-kindness of Jesus, that Jesus always meant it good for him, and it is never a loss to respond/submit to Jesus. The struggle he had shows he is upright, the willingness to give something he still like to Jesus shows that he didn’t forget his loving God, and His demand from him. In the spiritual sense, we would wanna note that sometimes it may be difficult to tell pple to let go (die to self and resurrect in Christ). Most men (in fact all) wouldn’t be able to respond to it initially. (At different phrase of our lives, there will be something that is so impt to us, that we could neither let go nor submit to the Lord immediately). But we should never stop short of teaching the mystery of ‘dying and resurrecting’ to our loved ones and children. There will surely come one day, the Holy Spirit will convict them to overcome the impossibility of flesh. And this is the essence of our Christian faith that could overcome the world, and would be passed on to subsequent Generations.

For the record, Jesus is still in David’s life while ‘Buzz’ is almost in the storeroom now. And David is moving on to new challenges in life, where he is approaching five.

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