Hotdog!

This past week, my wife and I took our son to Disney World for the very first time. Jude loves Mickey Mouse. What little kid doesn’t? Jude’s entire first birthday was Mickey themed. He has Mickey everything. From pajamas, toys, dinner plates, books to clothes, my son is all about the mouse. He watches the cartoons any chance he gets. He has even managed to get his uncles and grandparents to download Mickey apps and T.V. shows to their phones. He even knows all the characters by name. The only thing about this whole Mickey craze is that my son can’t say Mickey Mouse. He calls him “hotdog”. This is because at the end of every clubhouse episode on T.V. Mickey sings the “Hotdog Song”. It’s really quite cute to watch him run around yelling at the top of his lungs, “HOOOOOOTDOOOOOOOG!”

As parents, Sarah and I were very excited to see his reaction to seeing “hotdog” for the very first time. Many people told us, “He won’t really understand what’s going on” or “He’s too little to really enjoy it”, but as parents we couldn’t resist taking him to see the Mouse. One person in particular asked me if I was excited for our trip. My response was this, “I am excited to see his reaction.” In that moment, as those words rolled of my tongue, I felt the Lord speak to my spirit. He said, “I am excited to see your reaction to the things I give you.” That wrecked me! In less than a minute, I became completely undone before the Lord. He is excited to see our response to what He gives us.

My son may be only a year old, and he may not have understood that we were going to see his favorite character in the world, but Sarah and I were excited to see what his response would be to the things we had planned for him. We were excited to see his response to the gifts that we were going to share with him. In our minds we thought of different scenarios of what his response might be. We imagined that the responses to this experience would range from complete joy and sheer excitement to complete terror and trauma. As we imagined the different scenarios it made us even more excited. Why? The answer is very simple. We knew that what we had for him was good. God is excited to see your response to what He gives you because He knows that what He has for you is good.

When we finally arrived to see Mickey, Jude really had no clue what he was in for. As we approached the area where you can meet the different characters, Sarah and I eagerly waited to see what his response would be. The very moment that Jude saw Mickey he yelled out, “Hotdog!” He had a grin from ear to ear. That smile was priceless. He started fidgeting around in my arms. He wanted to get down and run to Mickey. There were still a few people in line ahead of us, so he had to wait, but with every step we took closer to him, the more excited he became. Finally it was our turn. I put Jude on the floor and he ran with arms held open wide yelling, “Hotdog!” Sarah and I looked on with excitement, only to see Jude get within a foot of Mickey, stop on a dime, turn around and run back into my arms crying because Mickey was too big and scary for him. I picked up my boy and held him in my arms. We walked over to Mickey and took our picture with Him. Jude kept his distance from Mickey, but there was still a look of excitement in his eye. He was in the presence of his favorite character and that made me happy. His response didn’t change the fact that what we had for him was good.

Sometimes we respond the same way to the things God gives us. Sometimes were excited. Sometimes were scared. Sometimes we are indifferent or even ungrateful. Our reaction to the things God gives us is sometimes that of a kid who just got clothes on Christmas. But in the end, what God has for us is good. He’s a good God, who gives His children good things. He’s excited to see how we will respond to those things He gives us, because what He has is good.