It’s about a two-minute drive from our house to the home of our child care provider. Not long, but we are to make the most of any opportunity, right?

In those two minutes, we had a conversation that would warm any mother’s soul.

Mason: I can’t wait until we go camping.

Jaden: Me too.

Mama: Oh, but when we wish for things to come quickly, we may miss the beauty in today. We may miss the gifts God gives today. We may miss seeing Him in our lives.

Jaden: I can’t see God, Mama.

Mama: (stops the van) Look outside. Do you see the wind?

Mason: (shakes his head)

Mama: No, you can’t see the wind. But what do you see? How do you know the wind is there?

Jaden: The trees are moving!

Mama: Yes, the leaves are moving in the wind, so we know the wind is there. It’s the same with God. We see what He’s doing around us and we know He is there.

Mason: Like I’m here, so I know God is, because He created me!

Mama: (smiles as she pulls the van back on the road)

There is silence for a minute, then just as we pull up to our destination:

Mason: Mommy, I can’t wait until the day I get to go to heaven and see God. Won’t it be so amazing?

Mama: It will! (parks the van and opens the door to let them jump out)

Mason: Do you think my crown will be shiny? Do you think it will be made of real gold?

Mama: I think it will be the shiniest crown you ever saw! And the more good things you do, the greater your reward will be.

Mason: We don’t know what the reward is, but we know it will be good!

Mama: It will be very good, son. Very good.

 

I hear her voice escalating from the bottom of the stairs. It’s directed at her brother who has stolen her hat.

He demands she say please before he returns it, but her wails only grow louder as every syllable of his name rings staccato over and over.

And then I hear the crash.

Running to the top of the stairs I see the evidence of what just happened below.

Now my voice escalates.

“Did you throw that at him?” I demand.

She nods, tears streaming down her face.

I send her to her room and then direct my attention to the boy still sheepishly holding the stolen hat. My tone much sharper than it should be, I tell him not to antagonize his sister. He looks up with big brown eyes and nods. Does he even know what antagonize means?

I return to my task upstairs, giving her a few minutes in her room to think about what she’s done, but more to give me a few minutes to remind myself that love is patient.

These children will learn to behave only when their mama does.

(Is there any hope for them?)

Two pairs of eyes watch my every move. Two pairs of ears listen to every word that crosses my lips, including the ones said in impatience and frustration.

Love is patient.

Love patiently teaches them how to respond to one another with love.

Love patiently disciples them day after day to become more like Christ.

Opening the door to her room, I find her curled up in a ball on her bed. I pull her onto my lap and ask her gently to tell me what happened.

He voice quivers as she confesses her words and deeds. Then she adds softly, “God says its sin.”

“You need to tell God what you did, and then ask Him to forgive you.”

She folds her little hands and squeezes her eyes shut, and with a voice brimming with tears, she confesses her sin to her Father.

And then all is well.

God’s love is patient. For that I am forever grateful.

He patiently teaches and patiently forgives both a little girl who is still very much beginning to learn His ways … and her Mama who should know better.

A six-year-old boy loves soccer, but he also loves VBS, and what is a six-year-old boy to do when the two happen on the same day at the same time?

As a parenting experiment (isn’t that what it all is anyway?) we had decided to let him make the choice, using it as a practical lesson in how to seek God for direction. Of course he’s made choices before – which t-shirt to wear; does he want the purple popsicle or the orange one; which movie would he like to watch – but had he never asked God to help him make a decision, then waited for the answer.

You may be thinking that in the grand scheme of life, this decision certainly wasn’t life-altering. But we are not talking about the grand scheme of life. We are talking about a six-year-old, and in his little life this was huge.

Part of me wondered, while standing beside his bed, him on the top bunk, us eye to eye, if a six-year-old boy can really hear from God. Does the God who keeps the earth spinning speak to little boys about such matters as seemingly insignificant as this?

“Mommy, I just don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe you should pray about it. Ask God what He wants you to do,” I suggest softly while gently scratching his back in the darkness.

“But I don’t know how to hear His voice,” he protests. He’s asked me about this before countless times. Always wondering and wanting to know how to hear from God.

“What if we pray about it together and I help you learn to hear God’s voice?” I pose the question tentatively.

I feel him nodding and so we pray and I tell him to go to sleep with the ears of his heart wide open. I murmur breath-prayers as I close the door behind me asking God to make His will clear to this little boy. Would God go out of His way to make His will known? Would He reveal Himself so clearly, proving His love and care for the details of my son’s life?

Aren’t the questions the same for you and I as we approach the throne of grace? God in heaven, do you care? Do you care enough to answer small requests from this earth?

The next day at dinner I ask if he’s gotten an answer yet about what to do – soccer or VBS?

He looks me straight in the eye and says, “I think God would want me to go to VBS because I’ll learn more about Him, but I don’t want to. I’ve decided to go to soccer.”

He holds my gaze and sets his jaw determinedly.

The potato gets lodged in my throat, and I hardly know what to say.

“Is that your decision – really?” I finally ask.

“You said I could decide, and I’ve decided soccer.” His voice increases in volume, immediately defensive.  

Choosing either option would not be wrong, and had he said he felt God was telling him to go to soccer, we would have affirmed his decision. But knowing the right thing to do – having sensed God’s direction – and not doing it, is sin.

Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.    ~ James 4:17 (NLT)

 

In the moment I feel him slipping through my fingers, this little boy who is growing up much too quickly. How did I blink and miss six rotations around the sun? And now we are here with a boy, who when given increased independence, chooses willful disobedience. I feel … helpless … like I’m leaving the season against my will of being able to decide what is best for him. 

There is one purpose of parenting: teaching a child to become independent, but totally dependant on the One who sustains their very breath.

My mind flashes forward to the tall, lean teenager I imagine him to be and the countless choices he will need to make. And there is his Mama, standing back, resisting the urge to him what to do, but praying like crazy he will make the right decisions.

Is this a small taste of the way it feels when a parent helplessly watches their child choose poorly again and again? Is my boy the one who will know what is right to do and choose not to do it? Will he willfully choose not to go God’s way?

The strangling feeling rises in my throat and my palms grip the fork a little too tightly.

“You have two more days to think and pray about it, son – to make sure you are making the right decision.”

And I have two more days to beg on bended knee that this boy will choose God’s will above his own. Because it’s much more than a soccer game and much more than VBS. It is the heart of a child, and will it or will it not be soft toward the things of God?

Isn’t that what we all need to do from bended knee? Submit to God’s will above our own?

The next morning at breakfast I dare to ask again. ”Have you heard God speak, son?”

He shakes his head. “I told you, I don’t know how to hear God.”

“But you do,” I say softly. “Remember last night at dinner when you said you think God would want you to go to VBS to learn about Him? That’s God speaking to your heart. You had a sense of what God wants you to do.”

His eyes get big then. ”It is?”

“Yes, son. Now you have a choice. You can choose to obey God, or you can choose to do what you want to do. It’s a very important decision now that you know what God wants you to do.”

“I really want to go to soccer,” his voice is getting wild again.

“I know. You have to decide if you want to obey God more than you want to go to soccer.”

“I really want to go to soccer.” He says it quieter now, thinking.

I gather the breakfast dishes signalling the end of our meal and our conversation. He needs time to wrestle this through. A wise mother doesn’t push.

It’s the next day he approaches me and says softly, like one in a state of complete surrender, “I’ve decided I want to obey God.”

The moment of surrender we all need to come to. The words we all need to say. Regardless of the circumstance. In each and every circumstance.

I hug him, and his Daddy says how proud he is of him. One of a thousand choices over a lifetime he will need to make, and they all come down to this: Will he obey God?

I watch him on the stage at VBS Family Night, him so proud to show me all the songs he’s been learning, me so proud to witness him choose obedience.

He stands with his sister and they raise their hands and sing God is great. He is awesome. God is wild about me.

And I whisper, Lord, You are awesome. I’m wild about You.

To Him be the glory for the work He does in little hearts.