Push Over or Softie?
It’s official. The Ranter is now the father of a college student! I can still remember as if it was yesterday, my wife and I walking around the Loma Linda Hospital campus trying to induce labor by foot. Oh the memories. Our littlest one starts Kindergarten next year, so we’ve got dozens of graduations yet to go.
This spring, I told our “graduate”, that I wanted her to either get a full time job this summer or complete a quarter at college. The thought of moving out of town for a few months sent her into a panic and she started looking for a job in earnest. She finally settled on working for a daycare during the times different staff members would be on vacation. It ended up being about two thirds of the summer.
She asked if that was good enough to meet the full time requirement, and looking around at the job prospects, I agreed. Then I got to thinking. Did I just get manipulated or am I being a softie?
Where do you draw the line between letting something pass without incident or becoming someone people take advantage of? People pleasers get taken advantage of all the time. No one ever mistakes them for well balanced people who offer good doses of grace. It’s as if they want to be manipulated into giving everything of themselves and getting nothing in return.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites pushed God to the edge again and again. Was God being a push over when he blessed them with the land of Caanan? He had to have known that they would be distracted by the blessings of this plentiful land and end up following other gods. So why did he do it? I believe that God is a softie. He really wants to give us the best of everything. Just like a grandparent wants to spoil those kids, God wants to spoil us. His only request is that we still honor him in the process. If we walk away from doing that, then he views us as children who think he’s a push over.
In Matthew 7, it goes like this;
“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?”
God desires to be decent with us. He’s not going to be a jerk and refuse us if our requests are sincere. He wants to bless us. He wants to offer us grace. The only reqest he makes of us is to love him for it and offer those things he gives us to others.
Tags: Christianity, Family, Kids, Life, Love, Marriage, Random, Relationships, Religion, Thoughts
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