A young girl, not even a year old, was sitting in her dad’s lap reading one of those children’s books with the cardboard pages. Her dad was talking with a friend as he held tight to her legs. You could tell she was daydreaming about living on a farm and petting the animals she was looking at in the book. Sometimes I wish I still had an imagination that sharp. Regardless, you could tell she was ready for the next great, big adventure on the pages to follow; so she attempted to turn the page by herself but could not seem to grip the cardboard enough to turn the page. At this point, any other child would call the attention of their parent by crying, yelling, or resorting to the infamous temper tantrum. However, she sat back quietly, assessed the situation and started pointing out things on the page she hadn’t previously seen and began to create an entirely different fantasy, while still looking at the same page.
I say all this, not to inform you that I spend my time analyzing other people’s children, but because I think there is value in what that little girl did. There have been plenty of times in my Christian life where I felt as though I was ready to move on to something different, or create something new in my life because I was tired of feeling, acting, or experiencing what I was in the moment. And guess what happened with all my efforts for change? Nothing. I stayed exactly where I was, and nothing different seemed to ever be on the horizon. And what do you think I did? I pouted, complained, and tried to make any excuse I could as to why I deserved whatever I was striving for, without any mention of what God might have wanted for me.
When I saw the pure, authentic joy of that young girl, it made me rethink my strategy of handling the “season” I am in (apologies for the “churchy” word). It also made me think about the plans that God might have for me, and the simple fact that God doesn’t want me to “turn the page” as quickly as I might want to. Maybe I was missing something, like the little girl was; and all I needed to do was sit back, reassess, and find something new from a fresh, God-centered perspective.
I was told once that it doesn’t matter what I was doing, as long as I kept Jesus at the center of it. God will see that and use it to bless others because I am a vessel of God, who is shown through me. What I gained from this nugget of wisdom, was the perspective that I didn’t always have to keep moving forward to continue to please God or move up the “righteousness” ladder (not that one has ever existed). I can be exactly in the place I’m in and still be a blessing to others and shine the light of Jesus through my interactions. At the end of the day isn’t that what life should be about?
Eugene Peterson paraphrased Romans 8 beautifully by stating:
“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good” (MSG 8:26-28).
There is a reason God wants us to have faith like a child in our daily walk with Him. Like that little girl, no matter if she never turned the page and was stuck in the waiting, she knew her father was right behind her holding her legs so she would never fall too far from his protection and love. Eventually, her father turned the page for her and she was off on another adventure. If you steward what you are given, and thank God in the midst of it, a life of wonder and amazement will no doubt be the outcome.
But God... 