It was a series of “nos” and “not yets” that felt unbearable to his four-year-old sensibilities. Even though I wanted to change the answer (I love to say yes!), I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. He collapsed into my arms yet again, legitimately devastated over something I knew was small in my reality, but big in his.

“Buddy, you want that really bad, don’t you?” He nodded though tears, and I put my hand on his heaving chest. “It’s grabbing your heart really tight.” He knew the sensation I meant, that feeling when you want a thing so bad it’s like it’s wrapped your insides into a strong grip, and he sobbed for a bit.

So I told him what I know, the only thing I know sometimes: The stuff we want can wrap itself around our hearts, can strangle the life out of us, can make it hard to breathe. Our wants are often unsafe for us. They can turn wise “nos” and “not yets” into fury and fuel, making the wanted thing grow and grow, taking up space in our hearts, luring us to pursue it with money or hustle or scheming or compromising. The strange thing is that wants aren’t safe even when they’re gotten—after all, the wanted thing can break. It can be taken. It can fail to fill the big spot it carved out in your heart.

“But you know what? There is one thing that’s always safe to want. Do you know what that is?” Bless his pastor’s kid heart—he saw the answer coming a mile away, and I felt a slight irritation at my perpetual inability to bury the lede. He answered, “God,” flashing a bit of smile because he knew he was right and that he’d sniffed out the secret.

But even when the answer is familiar and expected, it doesn’t mean it’s familiar and expected, you know? Workbook Jesus answers have always seemed bland until suddenly we realize the blanks offer life itself.

So I offered my kid the workbook answer and prayed he’d have eyes to see the life in the lines: “Buddy, there’s only one Want that is safe for your heart. And what Mama wants most is for your heart to be safe in Jesus.”

Jesus is the Want that does things backwards—loving us first, paying the cost himself, shrinking the power of other wants, filling our hears to overflowing because he made our hearts so he knows all their nooks and crannies. Jesus is the Want that cannot break. Jesus is the Want that cannot be taken. Jesus is the Want that no “no” or “not yet” can short-circuit, no matter what your mom says.

Later, I looked in the mirror at myself, feeling flattened by a series of “nos” and “not yets” that felt unbearable to my thirty-three-year-old sensibilities and repeated the whole thing. I saw the answer coming a mile away, but when it came, when I really thought about it, I knew it wasn’t at all as familiar and expected as I’d assumed it would be, and it rattled me back to life.