Iron Man and God

Today, I was in the bathtub with the door open, so that I could hear Asher.  He isn't allowed in daddy's bat cave (man room) and as soon as I let my head drop the the back of the tub in relaxation, I heard him exit the room.  Wait!  I didn't even hear him go in!  He's a crafty little one.

He comes to the tub with an Iron Man DVD (one of daddy's nice ones) and I just KNOW he is going to rip the box over it wide open and Isaac will kill us both.  An aside:  Isaac cares so much about cases and keeping them in pristine condition, so it's hard to have a child like Asher who likes to rip things just to hear the sound it makes...

I can't jump out of the tub all wet, so I'm trying to put all my persuasiveness and forcefulness in my words (which ALWAYS works with toddlers, right?).  "Asher, if you don't put that movie down right now, you will not get to watch it."  He doesn't care because watching it is in the future and he's ONLY about the immediate RIGHT NOW.  He's still not a kid that can reason what may or may not happen in the future based on his actions right now.  It's frustrating...

"Asher, can't you see you have to let the DVD drop from your grubby little hands before you're allowed to have it????  In a minute, I'll get out and open it so that you can watch it.  There's a reason for it you don't understand yet, but just trust me so I don't have to punish you and then you won't have it at all." 

DING DING DING.  Yep.  Light bulb above the old head.  I bet that's how God feels sometimes.  I'm walking along, ripping up pieces of things just to hear the sound of destruction meanwhile, He's screaming:

"Courtney!!!!!!  Stop!!!!!  If you just obey me and put that piece of your life down and wait a minute, I'll give it back to you.  In the right time.  There's a reason for it you don't understand yet, but just trust me or you won't have it at all!"

Man, I very much like to hold onto things like a toddler whose grubby little hands clutch a sucker with lint and hair and dirt all over it.  Mommy wants to take it, clean it off and give it back but all the toddler can think is "she's taking it away she's taking it away."  Even though she tells her child she'll give it back clean, the child can't think past the moment she takes it from him.   So what's he going to do, keep it dirty?  Is that better than losing it for a minute?  

NO.  But toddler mindsets are hard to break.  What does God want from me?  Love, obedience, trust, to serve, to seek Him are a few...

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome 

1 John 5:3

And it's not because He's a puppet master God, it's because He wants more for us than we can give to ourselves.   We were born dirty into a dirty world that, if given the chance, will throw mud in our eyes and trip us with its mounds.   The only thing I can do is trust Him enough to obey Him.  Which just happens to be love.  

If he tells me to go left, I want to trust Him enough to go left even when it looks like I'm walking off of a cliff.   Because looks can be deceiving and that cliff just may lead me to a clean body of water that removes all of the dirt.  Is the drop scary?  Heck yes.  Does the water sting when I first hit it?  Maybe.  

But none of that compares to the feeling underneath the water and the thrill I have when I jump up from it, CLEAN!  So try to hear Him today.  Then, obey the words or feeling He's giving you.  See what happens and then for the love, LET ME KNOW!