Today I was at the end of my patience with our 3 year old. She refused to cooperate or obey. We were in a hurry to collect her brother from school and I was struggling to get the two girls into snowsuits and into the van. Her little sister reminded her that we need to obey God. "No!" said my 3 year old, "I don't want to." Her responses to my calls for obedience were met with the same response. I was getting more and more angry by the moment. I knew we were likely going to be late, and each act of defiance made that less of possibility and more of a reality. I got her into her car seat and buckled her in, but not without a few harsh words first. I felt terrible. Terrible that my child did not want to obey, and terrible for the way I had reacted to her behaviour. I apologized and then said I would not be talking the rest of the way to the school so that I would have a chance to calm down and not say anything else that I would regret.
It got me thinking. How many times do I disobey my Heavenly Father? I am guilty of ignoring His leading or choosing not to follow his commands, and yet I often expect perfect obedience from my 3 year old. If I haven't got this obedience thing down yet, what gives me the right to feel so indignant when she disobeys me? And that is when it hit me. She and I are more alike than I ever realized and perhaps, she is modelling my disobedience. Hmn. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I fear that it is also more true than I would care to admit. It is time for Mommy to start modelling the behaviour I expect from her, and to find a balance somehow between discipline and grace. Growing up is not always fun!
"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us. We know it by the Spirit he gave us."
1 John 3:18-24 (NIV)
(Written November 30, 2010.)