Tex-Mex Spirituality

God wasn’t around last night.

I couldn’t help but think that as about five of us sat around the table at a Mexican restaurant. Someone picked a theological fight. So people started pulling out their favorite proof texts from Scripture and pounding each other with them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it started innocently enough. The group was just discussing God. Of course, then someone had to get bent out of shape and people started into the debates. Endless debates.

Sound and fury signifying nothing.

Initially, I was baited into it. But after a few moments, I couldn’t take it. God wasn’t anywhere near that conversation, I think, because it was bitterness, carefully disguised as academic banter. I had three years of that crap, though, and I couldn’t take it anymore. So I excused myself to the restroom.

As I reluctantly returned to the table, a little girl, maybe 4 years old, was coloring several tables down. She made eye contact with me, and smiled. Her eyes twinkled. Her smile was contagious. She had no presumption, no debates, no guilt, no regrets. Innocence smiled at me.

All these other people were talking about God, and I couldn’t find Him anywhere near their conversation.

But I could see Him in that 4-year-old’s smile.