October 6th, 2026
Hi Friends,
As part of his 4th birthday celebration, my grandson, Davis, received a little gun that shot gumballs. He was delighted and was explaining to me how it was to be used. “Do I shoot the gumball into your mouth,” I queried? “No, I shoot them into my own mouth,” he replied after looking at me as if I was the dumbest person on earth. “Or,” he added, “I can shoot them in the air and then get them when they land on the floor.” “But they’ll be dirty if they land on the floor,” I protested. “That’s okay. I like floor food,” he affirmed. It was very hard for me to keep a straight face after that.
I read these words by George MacDonald and thought of loving “floor food”: “… however men may have been driven to form their ideas of God before Christ came, no man can, with thorough honesty, take the name of Christian whose ideas of the Father of men are gathered from any other field than the life, thought, words, and deeds of the only Son of that Father. … it is not from the Bible as a book that we are to draw our ideas of God, but from the living Man into whose presence that book brings us, who is alive now, and gives his Spirit that they who read about him may understand what kind of being he is.” (The Lady’s Confession, 150)
The passage continues: “Many long for some sensible sign or intellectual proof. But such would only delay and impair that better, that best, vision – a contact with the heart of God himself, a perception of his being imparted by his Spirit.… The Father of our spirits is not content that we should know him as we know each other. There is a better, closer, and nearer way than any human way of knowing, and he is guiding us to that across all the swamps of our own in unteachableness, the seas of our faithlessness, the deserts of our ignorance.”
I wonder how often, in my relationship with Jesus, I have been content with “floor food.” I’ve settled too much for a Jesus presented by theologians and theologies. I’ve seen him in the pages of scripture and given more attention to the scripture than to its portrayal of him who is God’s final revelation to us. I’ve stayed grounded in exegetical accuracy and not been open enough to the fresh wind of the Spirit whose very work it is to glorify the Son of God and bring to remembrance all that he said and taught.
Because I may have settled too much for “floor food”, my relationship with Jesus may be less dynamic and less assured than it should be. Thankfully, knowing him does not depend solely on me. He seeks me. He wants to be known by me. He comes to me, each day, in the things he has created and sustained, in the request for some simple service like “a cup of cold water”, or in the face of one of the “least of these, my brothers” (and sisters).
So, it’s no more “floor food” for me. God helping, I intend to seek him who is Creator, Sustainer, Living Word, Last Word, Savior, Brother, and Friend. When I see him, I see his Father. When I come to him, I see despite previous blindness and I find rest for my soul.
Friends, I invite you on this continuing journey. Let’s not settle for less.
Blessings!
Doug