More than Understanding

Food is a struggle with my going-on-two-year-old. Usually she begs "eat, eat" all day long...until she's sitting at her high chair with five bites of her food gone, asking to get "owk."

"Are you going to eat your food?" I ask.

"Es, es," Marie says, nodding her blond head seriously.

I wait a moment while she stares at me. "Marie, eat your food." She continues staring. "Marie. Eat your food. Obey mama." (Here's where I would put the period after every word if I didn't strongly dislike the practice.)

She continues staring.

"Do you understand me?" I ask.

"Es, es," she says, nodding.

"Then eat!" More staring.

"Marie. Pick up your food. Put it in your mouth."

She picks out a kernel of corn and looks at it. Looking back at me, she puts it back on her plate. 

This scenario happens frequently. And it's not just Marie who does it. I think, especially as women (and men too, I suppose, but my experience is with the women) who have known spiritual things for years, we can be just like Marie is with me with God.

We hear God's Word and we say we know what it means. But anyone who sees what's going on is confused by the disconnect between what we agree we should do in Bible study and what we actually do in our lives.

How many Bible study questions have you answered with pray? When you are anxious, what should you do? Pray. How should you respond when there's a situation beyond your control? Pray. What do you need to do to become closer to God? Pray. But how many times has answering that application question made a significant change in your prayers?

Prayer is just the situation that is on my heart. Yours may be different. Still, isn't there something you've studied and know, but despite all your resolutions to otherwise, still aren't doing anything about?

Do you hear God asking you, "Child, do you understand?"

And we say, "Yes, God. I need to pray."

God pauses, and then, ever so patient, knowing our hearts, asks, "Are you going to?"

"Yes," we reply. Like the disobedient son, we say we are going. And if we're doing better than usual, the next day we sit down to pray until we remember that we need to do the dishes and we hear the baby crying.

Thankfully God is more patient with us than I am with Marie. Yet I am just like her. "Yes, Father, I understand. I am going to pray." But any intention I have of following through doesn't show fruit.

Marie, I think, understands. But she doesn't want to obey. She knows she's not supposed to say no to Mom, so she says yes. But she has no intention of eating her food. Sometimes I am merciful and put the food in her mouth for her. Other times, I make her do it herself.

Praise God that He doesn't stop urging us to obey. We say we understand. After all, His Law is written in our hearts.

But will we act?

Dear Rebekah

Now I write to you on your wedding day, my friend.

I've been waiting for this day, curious and excited, as you have been, for years, though you are young. I do forget how young sometimes. But don't be offended as I've started forgetting my own age sometimes. I just realize how little it matters anymore. Age does not mean maturity, nor youth ignorance. As I've told you before, I think of you as older than myself sometimes. You are the more mature. At least when it comes to going to bed at a decent hour.

And yet, I am looking forward to you learning the things that I have learned in early, young years of marriage. Like how little I do know and how much I have to learn.

People will say just wait. Those honeymoon feelings will wear off. Some days you'll wonder why you married this person. Some times you'll argue and wish you could go back home.

And on your first anniversary, you wonder if there's any significant truth to the words, when you can't pin-point an argument you've had and haven't found marriage all that difficult, when you actually love this man you married so much more than when you married him. Then you think that only those who don't understand what a godly marriage is like would say such things.

But, as time goes on, suddenly, in small ways, your sin smacks you in the face. Those small things build up, and slowly what you know you should do isn't enough to gloss over your selfishness and make you think you're doing well, and some little thing that Zach says irritates you inexplicably.

And you don't go to counseling or wonder if your marriage will last. You look at Zach and realize that you are unreasonable, even as you go on being unreasonable. But as you plop on the bed and lay down, careful not to touch, you hope he will put his arm around you and put a kiss in your hair, and he will. You won't be able to explain exactly what happened, but you know all is forgiven and you will go on loving him even if this happens three thousand times more.

And the significance of marriage will sink into your soul slowly, slowly, after the first confusion when this year doesn't seem all that different than last, really. And every year you think you learned something, loved each other, changed a lot - you'll only learn the next year that you didn't know what you were talking about.

As Eric Ludy says, you've only taken one step into an endless frontier. Next year you'll take another, but still it's endless before you.

This may seem like weird things to say on a wedding day. But they're not. (They are. That's the way I roll.) You see, we make too much of days. Sure, weddings are important. But they are important as they are set amid a marriage and an engagement. It's those days in between the ones we look forward to that determine what your marriage will be like. And when you get to those days, often they seem so much less significant than you'd thought they would be.

You were a beautiful bride, child. Everything was lovely, as I knew it would be.

Now you have the more difficult, less fun, and more rewarding work of being a beautiful wife. And I look forward to seeing that.

Love,
Jeannette