Peas and Carrots

Today was a beautiful day in Oregon. Sitting outside on my parent’s patio is peaceful and comfortable. We took baby L out there to eat her dinner tonight and were having a nice time. She was watching their waterfall and looking around at the trees. She seemed to be really enjoying her peas and carrots also! Then she decided that she was capable of feeding herself! I gave her two spoons to work with and I still had one to help her out a little since she was pretty hungry. Baby L got the bowl of peas and I kept the bowl of carrots. As she started playing in the peas with her fingers, she was absolutely thrilled! She dipped her fingers in and then put them in her mouth. I cheered, “Great job L! You did it!” Then she wanted to spoon the food into her mouth. She put the spoon into the peas several times and one time actually got the spoon from the bowl to her mouth. “Alright L! Wow!”

She was very happy with herself…until she realized that she was still hungry.

She was doing a great job, but it was not satisfying her hunger. She started to get angry and was rubbing the food all over herself making a HUGE mess!

I managed to get a quick bite of carrots in her mouth and she calmed down realizing that she was still getting food in her tummy. After a few minutes of this game, she had had enough. Our normally very happy baby was fit to be tied in that seat and wanting out fast.

She was completely covered from head to toe in peas and carrots. Matt and I took her straight into the sink to get cleaned up before we fed her a bottle. At last she was calm and peaceful again in her daddy’s arms being taken care of…what a picture.

As we went through this interaction it amazed me how well it illustrated many of our relationships with God. We are happy and peaceful in His creation. We are able to enjoy Him and the life He gave us. Then we start to think we can live this life on our own. It seems like a great idea and very exciting. We take over and drive ourselves to perform and achieve goals, status, praise and/or riches. We think we can handle this life on our own and love how if feels. Then we begin to experience little failures and we start to get frustrated. Our dreams are not as easily attainable as we thought and even if we reach them, we develop new and bigger ones.

When we continue to fail and fail, we begin to get angry, depressed, or resentful. Why won’t God help me do this? Why is this happening to me? God must not be trustworthy…I’m going to have to figure this one out on my own. Then we fail more. Some of us react to this failure with feelings of inadequacy and depression. We want to escape and get relief from all of our negative beliefs and feelings. Some of us believe that we can continue to press on and succeed, so we work and work and work and nearly kill ourselves to accomplish.

Then we fail more and by the grace of God, realize that WE CAN’T! We lift our hands to God as baby L lifted her hands to me to get out of the seat. Then as L had to get cleaned up in the sink, He has to clean up the mess that we have made by trying and trying to make our life work in our own strength.

The cleaning up of the mess usually isn’t a lot of fun, but in the end we are able to rest in our Father’s arms. He has cleaned up our mess and taken our heavy yoke. We are able to rest in Him and trust Him with our dreams, goals, desires, and our lives. We can surrender all of it and trust that He will and already has made something beautiful of our lives. It will be infinitely better than we have ever dreamed.

At some point every illustration breaks down. Baby L will someday learn to eat well on her own and will not have to depend on us to feed her and clean her up. It will be very healthy for her to learn independence from us in that way.

However, we are not intended to learn indepence from our Heavenly Father. As we attempt independence He draws us back to Him as He teaches us to trust Him in everything. Every area of our life He desires to live through us and give us a full and satisfying life that is not dependent on our circumstances, but His life in us and through us.

Thanks Baby L for such a beautiful picture of our Father…and some great entertainment!