Like building a castle on a swamp....

I'm going to be honest.  I want my kids to be good at everything they try.  Not because I think you have to be good at everything to be worth something, but because, selfishly, it would make my life a lot easier.  And if not naturally good at everything then at least instantly good when they are corrected.  I would take that.  Only having to say something one time.  

Michael, focus on your math homework.

Blake, pick up your shoes.

Zachary, rinse your dishes.

Parker, quit yelling.

And bam!  It would be so!  Instead, a lot of the life lessons we go over at home sound more like the swamp castle scene from Monty Python...

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England!"

They have to do everything at least three times the wrong way before we can do it the right way.  It's like an unspoken rule of childhood.  And, to be fair, adulthood, too.

Don't eat the chocolate...you don't want the extra calories.

You do not need new throw pillows at Target...you're trying to stick to a budget.

Staying up late to watch this television show will make tomorrow morning very rough.

And yet here I sit on the couch, in front of the TV, with a carton of ice cream resting on a throw pillow on my lap.  I guess I'm not any better at being instantly good than my kids are.  

Why doesn't obedience come easier to most of us?  Is that the other side of being created with a spirit of power and not fear?  That we don't fear enough what is not good for us?  Even the most timid, the most reserved person manages in some way to rebel against His word.  

"How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!"  Psalm 78:40

I am like Israel in every way.  I turn my head from what is good over and over and over again.  I choose my way instead of His.  His path is straight and narrow.  Mine looks like the intestinal system of a cow.

But God is God, of course, in every way.  Full of power and might and mercy.  And He has not forsaken me.  

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered from all my fears"  Psalm 34:4

 

Oh, to be answered!  He waits patiently, as I do with my own children, as we wade through bad decisions and the consequences thereof.  Until we are finally ready for obedience, finally ready to do it the right way.  

Yes, sometimes life is like building a castle on a swamp indeed.  Mucky, murky and unstable.  But we have a God who waits for us, supports us and turns our swamp into dry, solid land when we trust Him the way we should.  Amen to that, brother.  

XOXO...Kelly