An Unlikely Moses

Sometimes leaders come in strange forms. Sometimes the people who solve certain problems are not the people we expect to solve them. Sometimes they are the people who usually CAUSE the problems. I am certainly not making any kind of political statement here – I’m talking about Davis.

We left a movie at church last weekend. The first Friday night of each month is date night, extremely prized and sacred nights for those of us without childcare help. For couples without family in town, date night is circled in red on the calendar. The kids go to the church, eat pizza, and watch movies while the parents get what is sometimes their only night out (free of charge!) for the month. Obviously, Scott and I are regular participants. Davis has appointed himself as the Provider of Movies, since he is kind of a movie nerd and he wants assurance that he will enjoy the feature film. (Also, his favorite pizza is pepperoni and black olives, for anyone who wants to know.)

Davis brought A Bug’s Life. Unfortunately, we had eaten our way through Lakeside Tavern and picked up the kids before the movie was finished, so we had to leave the DVD to collect later. This week, our church has experienced a water leak that has caused extensive damage and Vacation Bible School, which might have caused MORE extensive damage to the church property. Somewhere in all of this, A Bug’s Life got lost in the shuffle. Since the DVD wasn’t exactly ours, I was a little panicked about losing it for good.

Today was the last day of VBS (and that’s a WHOLE other blog series, folks!) Somewhere in the few neurons that were still firing after a week of two-year-olds, I remembered that we needed to find the movie. Katie, Davis, Maggie (our neighbor and good friend who braved VBS with me) set out to find the movie. Davis looked at all of us and said, “I know where the movie is. Everyone follow me.”

Let me reiterate that I have been in charge of two-year-olds all week and I hosted a sleepover for some of Katie’s friends last night. My brain was beyond any type of rational thought. I needed someone else to do some thinking, I wanted someone else to be in charge, and Davis was willing to lead. I was so out of it that this actually seemed like a good idea. So imagine the parade of Davis, me, Maggie and Katie, single file, processing through the church. Davis took us down the administrative hall. He took us down the nursery hall. We made a pit stop to say hi to a friend. We stopped at the water fountain. All the time Davis insisted that he knew the way to the movie. He chastised us for walking too slow. He asked us to pay attention if we started questioning him. He led us down the stairs, through the parish hall, through the downstairs classrooms, and down a dark hall. At this point, I was ready to scream, hating myself for allowing us all to be led on a two-mile journey through the bowels of the church by a four-year-old with an active imagination. He turned us into a room that I honestly did not even know was there. And there, on a side table, hidden under some papers and other movies, was our DVD. Davis picked it up with pride on his face and said to his amazed followers, “Here it is. I told you I would find it.”

Sometimes, we all just need to let ourselves be taken for a ride even when we don’t think the journey is worthwhile. The most unlikely of leaders can often show us the way.