Bags crinkled and cans clinked in my hands when a screech wailed from the other end of the house. I was putting away the week’s groceries as the kids, freed from the car, ran inside to play. Instead of running out of the pantry, I waited. The surge of worry settled into a deeper exhaustion. I was too tired to know what to do. I knew what had happened. Nothing had changed.
I took a deep breath and placed the potatoes in the bin. When the crying slowed, I called my young son, “Jonathan, come here please.” I shelved the peanut butter and wondered what to do. I’d tried everything to teach him that he must use his words. That hitting his sister wasn’t an option. Nothing worked.
“Lord, I need help. I can’t do this.”
I heard the little steps slowly approach. Jonathan rounded the corner with his head down.
Overwhelmed to the point of giving up, I managed to sigh, “Son, what did you do?”
His downcast guilt spilled over to defiance. “She wouldn’t leave my trucks alone. She’s always messing up my . . .”
“Jonathan, I didn’t ask what Christa did. I’ll talk with her in a minute.” My calmness surprised me. I was too tired to be the mommy. “I want to know what you did?” I crumpled the grocery bag and poked it in with the others for later use as a dirty diaper sack.
He looked so small with his head hung low, but his voice was even smaller. “I hit her.”
“Honey, remember how I told you to use your words? To ask for what you want?”
“I tried to, Mommy.” He looked up at me with huge tears about to erupt from his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hit her.” He shrugged and dropped his shoulders. “I just can’t do it.”
His words grabbed my throat, choking the reminder of my failed attempts to do good. I had just asked God for help with the same words. “I can’t do this.”
The grip loosened when God spoke. “You are my child. You are just like Jonathan.”
I can’t do things right either. I felt like Paul, stuck. “I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway” (Rm. 7:19, The Message).
God answered my question with one of his own: “What do I do when you disobey?” The answer followed quickly, “Love him my way.”
I confessed to Jonathan my need for God’s help to do what’s right and my trouble obeying. We talked about how God can help us, how he wants us to tell him about our struggles and how he gives hope when we feel like there’s no way we can do what we are supposed to do.
We need grace, mercy and hope. People can learn spiritual things through Bible lessons and mimicry, but they need a personal experience with God. Teaching them spiritual relationship skills enables them to experience Jesus and change their lives. They learn to have an ongoing conversation with God and a deep vibrant faith. They find a breathing, intimate relational God that jumps off the inked page of scripture and enters our three-dimensional world: a world in need of hope, full of hurt, sorrow and worry.
Let’s give others, especially our children, hope by teaching them to experience Jesus.
You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, “It is hopeless”; you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint (Is. 57:10, ESV).
How do you give hope to your children? How does your experience with God help you show others how to experience Jesus?
In Spiritual Life (Part 1), I shared that our spiritual knowledge doesn’t have to be perfect to teach. The upcoming Spiritual Life (Part 3), will contain lessons on how to regularly experience God.
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This post is part of the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series or the other Blog Series.
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