James 4:10 "Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will exalt you."
When we try to teach about grace, mercy, and compassion, we sometimes forget that we all still have a lot to learn about those very subjects. That’s the beauty of teaching really, as you learn you teach and as you teach you learn. The more you show your kids about a Christian lifestyle, the more you learn because they are looking at the same picture from a different point of view.
This really came to head for me last night, into this morning. This past weekend, we did a bit of changing up, moving my 3 year old into my oldest son’s room, and gradually moving the baby into the nursery with his older sister. This obviously is a huge change for everyone in the house and it was met with a few difficulties. Not many, over all the whole process went pretty smooth, but last night was…interesting.
My 3 year old had played pretty hard during the day and had taken an impromptu late nap, which I’m sure any parent will attest to; late naps lead to being awake late at night. So he’s in his room, with his older brother, being a general nuisance. Now anyone reading this that’s had a roommate can probably relate to this very problem, you’re trying to sleep and your roommate wants to do everything BUT sleep. Naturally my oldest boy was not getting the amount of rest he desired, but here is where things got interesting. He did not complain.
He is a creature of habits, of routines, more so than most people, and often when routines are disrupted, this can lead to some really bad moods on his part, but he didn’t complain. We talked about it as I was taking him to school this morning and I told him how proud I was of him not getting upset with his little brother’s behavior. He said “He was going to go sleep eventually.” Sure enough he did, but to have that kind of patience, for most adults, is a very difficult thing. I think it’s difficult for us because we have this desire for the illusion of control in our lives.
The fact of the matter is none of us are in control. Not 100% of the time, not 10% of the time, there are so many outside factors that can alter the course of our day, our week, our month, our entire lives that the best we can hope for is exerting some illusion of control, tricking ourselves into thinking we have inflicted our will upon the world. What my oldest son did was something that I myself struggle with. Let it go, let things play out as they will. Trust that someone who has authority over the situation is handling it, even if we can’t see the results immediately. My son trusted my wife and me to handle the situation, we were the authority here, and it we were working on it. He trusted us so much, that he let himself go to sleep despite the disruptive behavior of his brother.
That directly leads to our relationship with God. God is our parent, our authority, the one in control of situations. When things go caddy-whompus on us, we need to take it to God, and ultimately ride it out. Yes, we look for solutions, but through prayer we let ourselves be let to the solution God wants for us. It may not be the easiest solution, it may not be the solution we want, but it’s the solution God wants for us. Yes, my son had to “ride out the storm” but he trusted that the best solution to the problem at hand was coming.
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