Feeling my failings….

There are times when parenting is so fun, a joy.  It is then that I know that this really is the best job in the world.  Then there are evenings when I cry out and thrash about the house, “How can it be that the swimming bag still hasn’t been unloaded – almost two weeks later!”  Then one cowers and the other cries and my husband feels like I am heaping all the blame on him – which sometimes I would like to do.  After all, if I can’t be the perfect parent couldn’t someone please step up and do the job?  I’ve failed again.

I want my children to obey me when I give them instructions.  “Please put away the swimming bag.”  But what if they don’t?  I think of how Jesus told me, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  (John 14:15)  So I turn to my children and say, “Children, if you love your mama then obey her.”  But then I notice a subtle difference. He doesn’t make an “if… then” statement.  He says that my obedience of him will be as a result of my love for him not a proof of my love.  And I look at my own sin-stained heart and think not only am I not worthy to expect the same obedience from my children that Jesus deserves but I am expecting more – a proof of their love by their actions.  How prideful of me.  Jesus doesn’t ask me to prove my love for him.  So why do I carry on in such a rant asking them to do just that.  Yikes!

Instead, when Jesus asks for my obedience, he is asking for a relationship with me.  He wants us to be closer.  He wants me to be whole, to be safe, to be all that he dreamed I would be before time began.  That’s why he asks for obedience. 

But I… I ask for obedience because of my needs: when will this house be tidy!?  And that is when I realize that I have failed again.  I can not ask my children to prove their love to me.  I could never do the same for my Jesus. 

He tells us “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  (Matthew 19:14).  My heart should be for my children to draw near both to our Jesus and to me in loving obedience not out of a desire to win my affections or out of a fear of reprisal. 

Though I know this, daily I fail and daily I am forgiven.  Jesus sees my failings and calls me a success because of his sacrifice.  I may fail but I am not a failure.  And my family too is made valuable by the same redemption.  Now, if only I could take hold of that truth and live it out.  But alas, “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  (Romans 7:15.) 

Daily I fail and daily I thank Jesus for walking me through this again and again even as I put away swimming stuff from two weeks ago.

Sigh, wishing you peace in daily turmoil friends.

Cori