Offing the Autopilot Luke 1:59-63

“On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, ‘No! He is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘There is no one among your relatives who has that name.’ Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, ‘His name is John.’” (Luke 1:59-63) NIV

Random Thoughts: 

Not being Jewish or a scholar of ancient Jewish tradition it is still apparent that something shocking is happening here. Tradition is about to be inconvenienced by God’s plan (a sure-fire way to create tension if ever there was one). 

Tradition presumes that the child be named after its father, Zechariah, despite God's instruction through Gabriel that the child’s name will be John, (Jochanan) a Hebrew name meaning “Gift of God”. Elizabeth doesn't faulter; she chooses God over Tradition. Citing its rules and regulations, however, Tradition, like an insistent child told “no” by its mother, turns to its father to get the answer it wants to hear. But Zechariah, too, says, “no”. 

Zechariah’s name means “One who recites, one who remembers” in reference to the priests who recite and remember the great things and promises of God. Amazingly, the one who bears that name-sake, the one who had doubted God’s ways in the temple, reveals that he’s had a very significant change of heart. He, too, chooses God over Tradition. God over human reasoning. Zechariah has remembered that God’s ways are not our ways. And he chooses wisely.

We are sometimes caught in this same struggle. Running our lives in a state of spiritual or cultural “auto-pilot”, we do what we do because it has always been done that way before. It’s tradition. It's habit. But sometimes, for God’s purposes we are called to change course which may look odd to our spiritual family or the culture around us. Maybe even suspicious. Let’s face it, change is uncomfortable. It doesn’t conform to need for control and security. We like knowing what comes next! The funny thing is that the Jochanan’s in our lives--those miraculous “gifts of God” purposed to show us God’s amazingness--only happen when we turn off the auto-pilot of habit or comfort and trust God to take us from there. 

Question:

What spiritual or cultural “autopilot” has God been leading you to turn off in favor of following His direction?

Journal Response:

I tend to be my own worst enemy. The thing is, my inner child really, really wants to just “fit in”, hold hands with everyone in the world and just get along--kind of like something out of that wonderful, 70s Coke commercial, “I’d like to teach the world to sing...”. 

But I can’t. Sometimes I have to stand out, get my hands slapped or not always be liked. God has given me a wonderful gift in the shape of my children. I love them to pieces (most of the time) and for their sakes I sometimes buck the system. To do what I hope will help them succeed I occasionally throw off my Coka-cola dreams of perfect harmony and do things like call the head of school administration departments to ask if they’ll consider doing something they’ve never done before. 

My oldest son with Asperger’s Syndrome hasn’t had a PE class in four years (he has a medical waiver) related to issues of the disorder. Next year, however, we are trying to change that. While he still wouldn’t do well in a regular class of his peers and we know he does not fit the severely cognitively or physically impaired demographic of the adaptive PE class they offer, we now have an idea that just might work. We are asking if our son can be a leader, an assistant for those kids in the adaptive PE class. A sort of peer mentor. 

And nope, it’s never been done before. 

So we’re waiting to hear more, setting up appointments, making phone calls and reinforcing our reputation as “non-conformist” in the educational departments of our district.  Having a special needs child who is also gifted is a paradigm shift for just about everyone we have ever encountered but we are no longer alone. I like to think that through our fumbling attempts over the years to make things better for our kids, God is using our family to pave at least a small way for the many we now hear about who are coming behind us. It might be only to change the way a certain teacher understands why a child does what they do and is the kinder for it. Or sees what they don’t do and stops long enough to figure out why.

If I had never had the children I have, I never would have found the voice God gave me or the heart to endure the process of changing long-established ways of doing or thinking. And while PE is certainly not a God-driven issue in and of itself, it is part of a long process of following His lead to do what we need to do for the sake of our kids. So, small as it may be,  PE is our next big adventure. Auto-pilot off. Engage.