Sometimes when I’m trying to figure out how God must work, I consider things that happen between our kids and us. I do that because we are in a parent/child relationship them, and since, as people of faith, we view ourselves in a similar way as “children of God”, I make the assumption our children are there to teach us something about how God views us.
Our kids are older now, so the parenting role of our relationship has evolved. While it has changed over time, a little parenting will always be part of our relationship.
In the recent past, we have had conversations with both our boys which made me reflect on that idea, and how it may be a reflection of our relationship with God. The conversations were basically the boys telling us about what was going on in their lives. One of the boys didn’t come right out and ask what we thought, but one did in fact request our opinion about an employment decision he was considering.
I thought carefully about how to answer that question. Honestly, I didn’t have a strong inclination either way, but I wanted to be careful about swaying his decision.
Instead of giving him a straight answer, I explained what I would do if I were in his situation. I discussed the things I would consider, and the tools I might use to help me make the decision. I told him to let it brew a while in his mind. And then I let it go. I assured him that in time, he would gain clarity, and the best path forward would come to light.
It didn’t take long, but soon he made his decision. Coincidentally, it was the decision I probably would have made too, but that was irrelevant.
The important thing was for him to figure out how to make difficult decisions, decisions where you have two good options, decisions where there is no “right” or “wrong” choice, but perhaps a better one.
A little back story – this decision was all part of a situation that had been developing for months. In order for him to even be faced with this particular decision, several pieces of the puzzle had to fall into place first, and that happened over a period of time.
It all reminded me that this is probably how God looks at us when we ask things of Him… in essence… when we ask Him for “His opinion”. Early on, we are taught to make our requests known to God, and then we expect God to just plop the answer in our laps. In my experience, it almost never works that way. I do believe God looks for the asking part, but then, rather than feed us a quick answer, He reminds us of what we already know, of things we have already learned by walking with Him.
I don’t think God always wants to just hand us answers to our requests. He wants a people who grow through having to trudge through difficult stuff. He wants a people who mature over time, a people who become increasingly able to operate out of a knowledge deep within themselves. He wants a people who are increasingly able accept that what He has taught them can be trusted, and that the life they are living really comes through Him.
Lest you misunderstand me… I don’t believe we grow to the point of not needing God. Our lives will be spent in learning increasingly difficult things which we learn by constantly coming back to Him for guidance.
I fully expect my boys to ask fewer and fewer questions of me. They will be less and less dependent on my advice. Is that because they will become self-sufficient? This is tricky. In a sense, yes, yet at the same time, that self-sufficiency is based on the fact they are carrying within them a trove of knowledge they acquired over a lifetime, not just from Tina and I, but from everyone who took the time to make deposits into their lives.
My boys will increasingly operate out of something that has developed deep within them. They will live out of a maturity built out of a relationship with their father, their mother, and a host of other people who were dropped into their paths for the purpose of maturing them. And they will live in a constant state of recognizing that there is always more to learn, there are always more difficult decisions to make, always more impossible situations to walk through, and there will always someone there to walk beside them through it all, ready to continue to offer guidance.
Such is our walk with God… always progressing… always acknowledging that there is more to learn… always understanding that we are mere humans.
