This morning while doing chores I had two of those “God moments.” You know, the kind where God says, “now do you see how much I love you?”
God Moment #1: God is a Perfectionist
It first began while we were cleaning the kitchen. Today is the day I generally clean the cabinet doors and refrigerator doors and other exterior spots. Lately I’ve been spraying the cabinets down and letting Peanut wipe the cabinets. Today when she was finished I looked over the cabinet and thought to myself, “should I go over it again or leave it?” Why? Because there were still spots of dried food on the cabinets. In the end, I left it. One, because I really didn’t want to have to clean anymore. And two, if I cleaned them all over again I was afraid Peanut might not willingly do chores anymore because her “perfectionist mom always does it over again anyway.”
It was during that last thought that I had this little mini-revelation. I mean, have you ever thought about what God thinks when we do something…even something good? I mean we all know that we can never compare to the goodness of God, yet God still wants us to try. Kind of like Peanut and cleaning the cabinets. She’ll never get the cabinets as clean as I do (at least until she gets older), but I still want her to try. Just like I could have taken over and finished the chore for her, I chose not to because it teaches her responsibility and creates family ownership. God could also have done the same thing with us. He could have chosen to take over our lives and make the decisions for us, but He didn’t. Why? Because He loves us and He knows that these experiences will help us to grow and become more like Him.
The second God moment happened when I heard Peanut tell Teacup for the umteenth time “No! You can’t do that!” She was doing something nearly every little baby likes to do…get into the kitchen cabinets and pull out the pots and pans. While it didn’t bother me because I knew it was a normal characteristic of a 12 month old, it bothered Peanut very much. That’s when I had my second revelation.
As a Christian, do you ever get annoyed by behaviors of new Christians? Maybe, they still have an old habit they haven’t broken or they decide to sleep in on Sunday or what have you. In your mind you automatically think, “No! You can’t do that!” I admit it, sometimes I judge far too easily. I certainly don’t want to or mean too but it’s a hard habit to break. Sometimes I have to stop and remember that “hey, that person is just a baby in Christ. They have a lot of growing to do.” Instead of judging them, I should be encouraging them in their walk and exploration so that they become stronger in judging wrong and right for themselves. After all, isn’t that what discipling is really all about? Encouraging one another in the Lord?
So today my daughter leaves me humbled. Humbled because I know my God loves me enough to let me try it on my own. And, humbled because I know I have a lot of work to do in the judgmental department. Thank goodness God is indeed a perfectionist who loves the imperfect. And thank goodness for the little children God uses to help us become more like Him.
