'Pretty much just talking,' she said

Brielle wanted to read her Bible tonight. Cool.

Being who she is, she wanted to start right--from Genesis 1:1. So we read the story of Creation--at least the first story, the one about the six days. God says, "Let there be light...and it happened. And it was good." Day 2, God pronounces that there should be air to separate waters below from waters above (and thankfully she didn't ask what that means). It happens again, and it's good again. Day 3, God speaks and dry land, plants, trees and their respective yummy fruits all happen, all good. Day 4, and God talks a moon, a sun and the rest of the stars into existing. Day 5, God's mouth opens again, and now we've got seas and skies teeming with life, blessed with the command to reproduce. Day 6, a few more words from God, and the land is full of creatures wild, tame and creepy-crawly.

And then He makes human beings.

He can quit while He's ahead and save Himself eons of headaches. But never one to leave well enough alone, He goes ahead and makes us anyway. But not just any way--in His image, after His likeness. Brielle and I took a few stabs at what that might mean before getting to Day 7, when God creates...

Nothing.

It's my favorite anticlimax. After lighting a universe, molding a planet, populating its liquid, solid and gaseous spaces, and topping it off by fearfully and wonderfully making two mini-Me's, God's grand finale is stillness. Silence. Rest. Pretty much the kind of day He might have had before all the creating began, except with more company.

It's holy. It's good. Very good.

"Do you think God was tired after all that work, Bubby Brie?" I asked.

"Um, 'all that work' was pretty much just talking," my firstborn replied, patient with my denseness yet figuring I should have known better. "And I don't get tired from talking unless I talk and talk for like a whole day without stopping."

I don't think she would get tired of talking even in that case, truth be told.

And God probably didn't either. But the reminder that a work so humongous can happen with such relative ease when Creator God speaks is Sabbath-rest to this tired, laboring Daddy soul.

'Is God resting today?' she said

Driving down the mountain toward Vacation Bible School one afternoon, Ashlyn asked,

"Is God resting today?"

"Wow. That's a great question, Ashie-love. Um, Jesus says in the Bible that God is always working--listening to us, helping us, taking care of us. God doesn't really get to rest. He works every day."

"But He did rest one day!" Ashlyn cried. She must have thought I'd forgotten.

It should be said that infant Ashlyn was our angel baby, because she actually did the only two things babies really need to do: eat and sleep. She is still rather adept at this pair of simple pleasures.

She relishes her grub with commentary worthy of the top foodie magazines (at least the ones read by preschoolers). The first time she ate kiwifuit, at age two-and-change, she said, "Yum! Kiwi tastes like canteloupe and grapes." (And it does. I'd never thought of it, but I couldn't beat that description now.)

And even though she precedes them with tormented screaming and insanity, Ashlyn is our one child who still does naps. We've long known known that her crescendo of ferocity is just the storm beform the calm. Just this week, she confessed to her appalled sisters, "I do like naps."

Ashlyn plays hard, eats well, sings loud, fights strong. And she rests.

Was she looking for divine company now on this late afernoon, Someone as passionate, alive, brilliant and busy as she, Who also knows when it's time to stop?

"Yes, Ashie, you are right. The Bible also says He rested for a whole day when he was done making everything."

Exonerated, but no more satisfied than I with the paradox in the air, she paused. "Daddy, when is He going to rest again?"

Delighted, I laughed aloud.

"Daddy! When is He going to rest again?" She was urgent now, demanding to be taken seriously. And I was taking her seriously. It was just such a beautiful question that my joy at being related to her and the depth to which she had stumped me only knew how to come out as a giddy giggle.

"I don't know, Ashlyn. I'm just laughing because that is a very good question. It is such a good question that I think I will think about it for many days before I try to answer it. That is one of the best and hardest questions I have ever heard in my whole life. I'm very proud of you for asking it."

When will God rest again?

When we stop screwing up? When life stops giving us owies? When the human experiment is finally over and we're living out its happy ending in Paradise? Or will keeping Paradise Paradise take more God-work than ever with us on board, like a parent trying to keep the house tidy with a herd of small children on the loose?

Lord, you're the God of rest. You know--the One with the easy yoke and light burden. The One who made it a rule for us to chill every seventh day. (Great idea, BTW.)

You're the God of rest. But when will you get any Yourself?

Ashlyn and I want to know.