Faith Like a Child...

Well, another weekend with my family has come and gone. Bethany, Matt, and my nieces Lexi and Jill came down this weekend to spend some time with Uncle Benny. While I was definitely looking forward to seeing everyone, this time around was very thought-provoking for me.

I had a lot of things on my mind this weekend that I wasn't expecting to have, so maybe that made things a little harder on me. But I just couldn't help but notice the parent-child interaction this weekend between Matt and Bethany and their oldest child Lexi. With everything that has happened in my life over the last couple of days, I just immediately thought of how Lexi's weekend sort-of resembled my own relationship right now with my Heavenly Father.

This weekend was tough for Lexi. For whatever reason, she was just very difficult and was not very cooperative. Bethany told me that she had been really excited to come to my house for the last couple of days. But when she got here, things seemed to unravel.

First, we decided to go to the aquarium downtown since she had never been there. We figured she would enjoy that. So we headed out for lunch with the aquarium to follow. Well, the line at the restaurant was really long, so we just decided to do the aquarium first so the lunch line would die down a little. So that meant that Lexi did not have lunch at her normal time. Strike one!

Once we got in the aquarium, it was very crowded and it is dark and narrow in some places. Well, Lexi was scared of that and scared of some of the fish as well. So most of the time she was clinging for dear life to Matt instead of enjoying the sights. Halfway through the aquarium, we let her try out a playground area (like a McDonald's Play Place). She was fine for about 2 minutes, but then got lost in the maze of tunnels and cried until someone led her out of it. Strike two!

So by now, we just decided to get through the aquarium and get some lunch. As we were walking out the door of the aquarium, Lexi appeared to be much better now and said, "That was cool." You can imagine our frustration as we walked back to the car, wondering where that attitude was half-an-hour ago.

So later Saturday night, we are back at my place and Bethany tells Lexi that we are going swimming. You have to understand that swimming is her favorite thing to do in the whole wide world. But imagine our surprise when we get to the pool at my complex and find out that the gates are locked and we can't get in. Lexi didn't understand what the problem was and just started crying. She kept asking us the rest of the night where the keys were so we could get in. And we had to explain to her that we didn't have them. And she just kept saying, "Someone locked the door. That's so mean." And you can imagine how bad I felt. Strike three!

But just seeing Lexi as she approaches her 3rd birthday really makes me think. Lexi is at that age where she knows what she wants and she often cries if she doesn't get it. Don't get me wrong though... most of the time she is very good and surprisingly easy-going for a kid. But when she makes up her mind to throw a tantrum, she does it with style.

So the more I witnessed Lexi's rough weekend, the more I thought about my own relationship with my Heavenly Father. How much, I wonder, am I like Lexi right now? That is, throwing a fit whenever I don't get what I want? In my relationship with God, I feel like I am where Lexi is right now with her parents. I am old enough to know better and old enough to know that my Father loves me and only wants the best for me. But I still want to have things my way.

Why is it that I hear God telling me things and I can know and understand why He is doing it, but I still don't want to do it? I know that He only desires to bring good things to my life, but I keep fighting what He tells me because I think I can do better on my own.

I think sometimes it's because I assume that short-term happiness always leads to long-term happiness. But like earthly parents, who sometimes tell their children to do things they don't want to do because they know it is good for them, everything God has me to do is for my good. So why do I keep fighting Him as if I know better than He does?

Imagine what God must feel when He tells His children (you and me) to do things and we say "No!" or we throw a fit. He loves us so much that sometimes He has us to do things that we don't like or that are difficult for us because we do not know what is best for ourselves. And imagine that God is preparing something wonderful for you, but he can't give it to you until you obey Him and let go of the things that you think you want.

I think for me, maybe God is training me and building my trust in Him right now. He has just brought me out of a relationship that was wonderful and amazing to me in every way. And while sometimes I understand why and I am in agreement with it, other times I fight it and I wonder why He decided to take that away from me. It just brings a great sadness to my heart. It's sort of like Lexi asking us where the keys to the pool were because she just didn't understand that we didn't have them. There was that pristine swimming pool just sitting there and here was Lexi who wanted nothing more than to swim in it. It just didn't make sense to her why she couldn't swim in it.

But having faith and trust in God is to not question why He does certain things, but rather to embrace what He does through them. For God brings all things together for the good of those who love Him.

A dear friend of mine, a Brother in Christ, shared a wonderful summary of what it means to trust fully in The Lord. He posed the question, "How do you know when you are trusting God with your whole heart? You know you are fully trusting in Him when you don't have a back-up plan."