I am blessed with six grandbabies. Yeah, I know that sounds like a lot and you’re probably thinking I must be about a thousand years old! They are all very close in age and there is a set of twins in there, so it’s not a crazy as it sounds, at least not to me! Also, I’m NOT a thousand years old, for the record!
I love my grandbabies! I love my kids too, but there is something about grandbabies that bring out the “spoil-em-rotten” gene that most every grandparent in the world has. It lies dormant while you raise your own children, but as soon as you hold that tiny, sweet little bundle and it starts to cry and you get to hand it back to mom and dad, the grandparent gene kicks into high gear!
My husband jokes all the time that I only see the perfection in my kids and think they can do no wrong. Actually, now that I think about it, my kids tease me about that as well! But I will always believe that my kids are the bestest, kindest, smartest and happiest humans on the planet. Multiply that by infinity and that’s how I feel about my grandbabies!
When I think about the unconditional love I have for my kids and my grandbabies, I can’t help but think about the fact that the way I feel about them can’t even come close to the way God feels about me. I have always believed the best about them and when they messed up as children, I knew it was because they didn’t know any better. I would have loved to make it so that they never had to experience anything negative or hard or mean. But they needed to “do it themselves”.
I imagine that God feels the same exact way about me. I could get though life so much better if I would stop taking the reigns back from him and thinking “I do it myself”.
God says in Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a crystal ball that tells me what those plans are, as much as I wish I did. Rather than allowing God to work out his plan for us, many times we get impatient and take the plans and make them our own; we think we can do better or, my personal fav, “God, you’re so busy with the middle east and everything, I’ll go ahead and take this one, ok?” I feel that there are times that God allows us to go down a path believing this for a little while to make sure we learn the lessons he’s trying to teach us.
When my oldest granddaughter was 2, she was at that age where she felt she could do anything. She’d try to do something on her own, even though mom or dad or grandma or grandpa was nearby wanting to help. She’d try and try and soon get it so messed up, she’d end up crying in frustration and running to the nearest adult with the demand to “fix it”
How often do we do the same exact thing in our spiritual life? According to the Bible, the Israelites did it constantly…over and over. I can just imagine the angels all gathering on their night off to watch another exciting installment of “I Do It Myself!” Time after time, the same thing happens. God wants us to go South, we go North, get lost, cry to Him to “fix it” and the angels just throw their popcorn at the screen yelling, “Dude, will they EVER get it right?”
We would save so much time and energy if we’d get it right the first time by stopping our reliance on our own human mind and instead rely on God. Allow his plan to grow and flourish. The outcome would always be better, always be smoother and always give us a peace in knowing that God’s got this. He can always take my “I do it myself” attitude and turn it into his “plans to prosper and not harm, plans to give you a hope and a future”.
I think that’s a much more trustworthy and lasting way to live. What about you?
