God's Will, Not Mine

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ~Jeremiah 29:11

The other day, I asked my daughter to pick up her toys off the living room floor so no one would step or trip on them. She responded, “NO! I’m NOT going to do it!”

Wow, this, from a normally kind, gentle, well-behaved child! What’s the deal? I thought.

My request wasn't that big, and it certainly wasn't cause for that kind of response.

“Why aren't you going to clean up the floor?” I asked.

She replied, “I just want to play outside. And if we’re outside, no one will step on or trip over the toys anyway.”

Touché.

However, I had more than one reason for wanting her to pick up her toys-responsibility, ownership, leadership, following directives, etc.

So I asked again.

How many times does God have to ask us to do something before we finally give in and do it? Often times, we feel a “pull” or “push” from God and we do the same thing my daughter did; we throw a little tantrum of our own. We tell God we don’t feel like it. We tell God we will do it later. We ignore that God might have more than the one obvious reason for asking us to do something.

It’s easy for us to want to control our own lives. It’s easy to think we know what is best for ourselves and our children. We are wrong.

God only wants what is best for us, and even when situations don’t end as we expect-God is there, still guiding us, still knowing and understanding far more than our mind’s capabilities.

Perhaps, my daughter’s tantrum is a good lesson for all of us. We, as adults, clearly see the benefits of cleaning up her toys. We understand things she won’t even have the capabilities to understand for several years. We only want what is best for our children. And God only wants what is best for us.

Sometimes, God has to make a request multiple times. Sometimes, God has to rephrase the question. God loves us beyond any love we can understand. God knows what is best for us even when it doesn't make sense at the time. It may take months, or even years for our choices to make sense-and to be quite honest-some of our choices may not ever make sense and might not ever seem to pay off...but we know there is more than we can understand. We know that God’s plan is MUCH bigger than ours, and we know that

God is good. All the time.