Cleaning Windows XP

In a house with three children, I do a lot of cleaning, and supervising of cleaning. I allowed the two littlest to breathe a little air on to the dining room window, and be fascinated with what appeared. But then, they began, as most children do, to write in the fog they had created. I asked them not to write on the window with their fingers, as it would make it dirty. Then back to my cleaning in the kitchen.

I'm wiping down counters and putting away things and preparing for the next assault on the kitchen, when Matthew starts in with a question only a child could ask. Does XP clean windows? I wanted to enjoy the beauty and innocence and chuckle of his question, little realizing the effect my enjoyment would have. He repeated his question, does XP clean windows, and I continued to revel in this childhood innocence, and preparing what I might say when the next thing to leave his mouth absolutely floored me: "I thought so."

Matthew had assumed that my silence was a yes. Since I did not correct him, it must be true. So I hurried to explain that Windows XP was a program for the computer and that XP did not clean the windows like the one in the dining room. And I began to think more on this. How many times do we as parents not answer our children according to "their" timeline? How often do they interpret this as a "yes" answer. If no one corrects them, than it must be true, right? But what if it is false? What if it is wrong? Who will stand up and say "No" when a question is asked?

Then I had to ask myself an even harder question. How many times have I been this way with God? How many times have I asked God for an answer to a question that I had already formulated an opinion about? Have I taken His sometimes silence as a yes? Have I felt that if I am not corrected in the way I feel I should be that it must be true?

God's Word says that He is not slack concerning His promises, as many of us understand slackness to be. I cannot mistake silence for a yes. Just because I do not perceive an immediate answer, does not mean that the answer is therefore yes. Out of the mouths of babes. Little Matthew taught me much today.

Sharon Leukert