I was sitting in the movie theatre the other day, and this really cute little kid came in with his family. He had black curly hair and couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 years old. He had a huge smile on his face and was obviously excited about seeing a movie as he ran ahead of his mother. He was so happy…at least, that was until his mother broke the news to him that he had to share this big brother’s candy. His excitement suddenly turned into hysteria. He proceeded to pitch one of the biggest and loudest fits I have ever seen in public. He screamed…he hit at his mother…he cried…he shouted…he stomped. He wanted his own candy, and he made sure that everyone knew that. His mother sat down on a nearby bench and pulled him over to her. She calmly sat there and let him scream and cry and stomp. She didn’t have much to say. I was trying not to make it obvious that I was watching this. I was shocked at the mother’s calmness and patience…and to be really honest, kind of thought she might should do something about this scene. However, she never got angry. She never raised her voice. She seemed to be in full control the entire time.
I had a flashback to this incident a few days later when I was pitching one of my little fits with God. It was one of a similar hysteria to the little boy in the movie theatre. I screamed…I cried…I stomped…I pouted. I told God that it wasn’t fair that He wasn’t doing things my way. That’s when I remembered the mother’s calm spirit and how she let her son “get it all out” and then calmly took his hand and walked him in to see his movie.
In her book So Long Insecurities, Beth Moore says, “We need a place we can go when, as much as we loathe it, we are needy and hysterical…I need someone who will love me when I hate myself. And yes, someone who will love me again and again until I kiss this terrestrial sod good-bye.” How awesome is my God?! Now, I don’t know if the lady at the theater was doing it on purpose, but she showed me a picture of God that day. He reacted a lot like her when I threw my fit…he calmly waited for me to say my piece (even if some…okay most…of it was undeserved and just plain stupid and selfish). He let me get it off my chest. Then He took my hand and walked me into the place we were going before I stopped us with my hissy-fit.
Psalm 20:1 says, “May the Lord answer you when you are in distress.” And in this case, his answer to my distress was one I have heard before…OBEY ME AND ENJOY IT! (My friend, Vanessa, has some experience with this too.) And right now, obedience means standing still. If I don’t continue in the tasks God has put me in the middle of right now, I am taking steps away from Him. That means that I continue teaching school right now and I continue driving an hour to serve at church. I continue learning about finding my security in Christ. What’s more important (and harder) is that I find joy in the middle of this obedience. I can’t just put my “game face” on or trudge through it. I can’t complain my way through it. Instead, I have to savor every minute of it, dive into these tasks and find the purpose of them, and realize that there are people who need to see Jesus in me right where I am right now. Bottom line…I can’t waste this time with fits and whining! That’s not obedience!
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