The other evening I got home after doing a bunch of stuff with Derek all afternoon. I chatted with Careen about our day and asked how hers was. She looked at me with frazzled hair and haunted eyes. Apparently Ali had thrown four--count them, four--major fits that afternoon. Ali is a sweetie most of the time, but when she throws a fit she BLOWS. You need earplugs and the patience of Job. I can't imagine suffering through two in a day, let alone four.
I patted Careen on the head and sent her downstairs to watch a movie with the comparatively calm and cheery Derek. Then I stared at my two-foot-tall adversary. She looked at me like, "You ready to go, dad?" I just smirked. I quickly got her shoes on, trundled her off to the van, and we drove to Lewiston to shop for necessities. This would have been a boring errand for Derek, but I totally sold it to Ali. "Daddy and Ali go SHOPPING!" I said it in my most excited voice and with a huge smile on my face. She bought it! She was a sweet and complete angel all the way down, at the store, and all the way back. She was smiling and waving at people like a parade princess, describing the fun parts of her day to me, playing all kinds of silly games and laughing.
What happened to turn her day around 180 degrees? Just a change in approach. Careen's approach wasn't wrong. Had I been stuck with Ali that afternoon I would have suffered the same fate as Careen did. In fact I knew that I'd be in for it if I just sat down and tried to play with Ali. So we made a left turn, went on a trip that I hadn't planned to make until the next day, and transformed everything. No magic to it...sometimes you just need something new to perk you up.
Faith is the same way. So many people confine faith to certain times, places, rituals. Going to Bible Study, that's faith. Grocery shopping? Not so much. Eventually all of those times, places, and rituals become so much wallpaper: they're present, but you barely notice them and they don't change anything. If you want your faith to be renewed, you have to change direction every once in a while and see things from a new perspective. Looking through a telescope, having a different kind of Bible Study, singing new songs, reading a new book or seeing a new movie, finding God in the peanut butter aisle...all these things wake you up. They give you a new perspective on the event in which you're participating and on all the regular faith events as well. God knows this, which is why he sends us new faith stimuli all the time. If only we weren't so invested in shutting them out in favor of the things that "feel more like faith"!
What's new in your life this week? It just might be a message from God, telling you to get your shoes on and come with him on an unexpected journey that could change your day, and maybe your life.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
I have faith that my 3 kids will be reasonably good at the store and I will have patience to listen to all of the "I want this and that" sentences. Then I hope I have more patience to be nice when they run around the aisle like it is their own personal store. Thank God,Reagan is still in the cart.
ReplyDeleteI know this blog was about different approaches to faith, everyone has different ways they get to have faith in something. Since Eric, Chris and Reagan came into my life, I have had more faith in God, then when I had no kids (and more sleep). My kids have faith through doing things rather than talking about them, it is easier for them as kids to do rather than discuss. Chris can play with Reagan through doing, rather than me talking about it to him.