A Work in Progress

This is a typical conversation between Brianna and me:

Me: Brianna I need you to go pick up the toys you were playing with.

Brianna: Noooo, but mommy I’m busy right now, and I'm not done playing with them.

Me: Sweetheart, You haven't been playing with them for some time now.
I need you to obey right now and do as I ask.

Brianna: But, mommy I don't feel like it right now.

Me: Brianna, if you won't obey right now I'm going to have to spank you because you are disobeying me and the Bible says you have to obey mommy. That means you have to obey quickly and quietly.

Brianna: (With a sour look on her face, she gets up and slowwwwwly begins picking up her things.)

30 minutes later…….

Me: Brianna, it’s been 30 minutes and you have only picked up a few things.

Brianna: But, mommy I'm soooo tired.

Me: You just got up. How can you be tired?

Unfortunately, this is a constant reoccurrence in our home. She is a work in progress, as are all my kids and I should clearly add, myself as well. As I was thinking about this daily scenario, I couldn’t help but think how similar this sounds to my conversation with God.

This is a typical conversation between me and God:

God: Erica, I need you to go invite Mary to church.

Me: Nooo, but God I’m really busy and besides she’ll probably say no.

God: Sweetheart, you will never know what she’ll say unless you ask her.

Me: But, God I really don’t feel like it right now.

God: Erica, if you won’t obey me right now I can’t bless you. I want to bless you and you need to understand that delayed obedience is still disobedience.

Me: (I walk away from this conversation irritated because I’m asked to do something I’m not comfortable with.)

Several months later:

God: Erica, it’s been several months and you still haven’t asked Mary to church.

Me: But, God….

Sadly, I have had one too many conversations like this with God. Lately, God has been probing my heart about obedience. So many times I have excused disobedience with procrastination. It doesn’t matter how you look at it, but the truth is that delayed obedience is, and always will be, disobedience. That stings!! It amazes how my kids can be the perfect picture of how I response to my Father. Their typical excuses to me are my typical excuses that I give to God. We all do this. And what is crazy is that we don’t usually like to call it what it really is, disobedience. We prefer to call it everything else: procrastination, fear, laziness, insecurity, lack of time, distraction ect…

I have made an observation recently, that when my eyes are on myself the tasks God gives me are overwhelming and impossible. My weaknesses and inabilities are magnified and drown out my desire to obey the Lord. But when my eyes are on my Father, the task is doable and possible, because He has promised me that He will never give me more than He gives me the grace to do. He sees me as an instrument He can use to carry out His work. But the humbling reality is, that if I am not willing to carry out the work He desires for me to do, He has no problems finding someone else to do it! Wow!

We all desire to be blessed by God. But, I wonder how many blessings we miss out of because of our unwillingness to obey our Father. My eyes have been opened today and my heart pricked by this truth. This is something I will be thinking about for a while. The next time I am given an opportunity to obey Him (which will probably be any minute, since my kids are calling me as I write:) ), I will be reminded of this. I am a work in progress. But thank the Lord he has lots of patience which I know I need when I'm dealing with my own kids disobedience. Well, I thought I would share a little about what the Lord is dealing with me today. What is yours?