You guys, we’ve had a few doozy conversations in our household this week with our little four-going on fourteen- year old nugget.
And my responses…they spanned the spectrum from winning parent of the year to…well you be the judge.
It had been a long, very very hot day at the Peach Festival. We had driven to the small town of Ruston (Hail to thee my Alma Mater) for their annual celebration of the peach.
To be honest, I didn’t do much celebrating. It was so hot that I wanted to just sit down and cry. At one point I hoisted myself into the concession stand to get a taste of the window-unit AC that they were selflessly hoarding. It was hot y’all. No shade. No rest for the weary.
We went to dinner that night with friends. Let me correct that…best friends, and their precious little one.
We were all chatting and laughing and the littles were blabbing to each other over their chicken strips when my precious one took a DEEP dramatic sigh to get the attention of the table.
All attention on her, she spoke.
“Gotta love the devil.”
Said so matter of factly.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I. LOVE. THE. DEVIL.”
She inunciated every word at an elevated volume.
Our end of the table got quiet as I processed how to respond.
You guys pull out your pen and pad and jot down some notes on my response, just for your future ref.
I spoke into the pregnant pause:
“Just eat your chicken.”
That was it.
Winner winner chicken dinner.
Ha ha ha I still laugh at the degree of the missed opportunity for a great, deep spiritual conversation.
Train up your child…am I right?
Just eat your chicken y’all.
One evening this week I had the pleasure of administering a spanking, I became a minister in the laying on of hands.
Liv had been escalating in sass and it was time to de-escalate.
I popped her behind, barely really, and she went into a frenzy.
It was a full on teenage melt down…completely disproportionate to the weak excuse for a spanking she had received.
She threw herself on her bed, after slamming her door, and cry-screamed into her pillow.
EYEROLLLL.
We stood outside her bedroom door trying to decide what to do. If you’re a parent you know the feeling. Should we go in and play good cop bad cop, talk her down like its a hostage negotiation or should we let her weep it out?
We went in.
We sat on her bed and I rubbed her back to calm her down.
“Nima, what’s really wrong? I didn’t spank you that hard. You’re not in trouble anymore so what’s wrong?”
She was mad at ME. She felt wronged by the laying on of hands.
She sat up and caught her breath…full snot rivers running down her face.
“Mom. It’s just that…. I have to say something…”
“Ok. Say it.”
“I just need to say that, Mom….
I’ve got a lot of problems.”
Oh my lanta, Mary mother of our Lord, give me the ability to keep a straight face.
Nope. I covered my face with my shirt and turned my body away to laugh.
(Take notes y’all..there’s some solid parenting happening in my home)
Problems? She’s 4…and living the actual American Dream…from the Congo to the USA…. Started from the bottom now she’s here. What did she know about problems?
“What do you mean darling?” I said after composing myself.
“I know my problems are BIG mama, and so I try to make them smaller because I don’t want them to be big, but you always spank me before I can make my problems smaller.”
“Well sweet girl, it’s my job to make your problems smaller. As your mama I am the one that has to teach you how to shrink those problems down and make them right…and sometimes I have to do that through a little spanking to get your attention.”
She listened to my every word. She was tracking with me.
“Mama…I have another question for you?”
“Yes ma’am. What is it?”
“Mom, does your heart ever argue with you? Like, your heart tells you to do one thing and you don’t want to do it but you do it anyway? And your heart argues with you about it?”
How insanely profound of her. She was describing the ole “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” struggle that our friend Paul described in Romans 7!
I looked at the other-half, who was sitting at the end of the bed, and we gave each other the look of “holy cow that’s deep” and I tried to think of how to respond.
“Yes baby. I do have that happen to me a lot. That’s called sin.”
“I know what sin is mama!! That’s what I’m trying to say.”
Well excuse me then. I guess I’ll hold my explanation since you know all the theology that there is.
We went on to have a very deep, incredible conversation about sin and how the Lord teaches us to deal with it.
We tucked her in and shut her door. I let out a huge sigh.
I felt like I had just run a marathon.
“Babe.” I said to my husband.
To which he chuckled, knowing exactly what I meant, and walked in the living room to watch TV.
Sometimes we need to give the devil a lot less attention than he desires.
We need to look at him and say “Eat Your Chicken.”
Ain’t no reason to even discuss with the devil.
Sometimes he’s so BIG and OBVIOUS and not doing a good job of disguising himself that we need to just put him in his proper place and move on.
But when our heart argues with us, when we feel the familiar pull of flesh and sin and desire and all the feels of wanting to do what we know we shouldn’t, that we should pay attention to.
That’s the more dangerous territory. When there’s a whisper-loud battle in our hearts that isn’t so easy to spot.
There’s a subtle back and forth that I am convinced is the breeding ground for quiet brokenness. Where the arguing in our heart continues way longer than it should, creating a gray space that becomes hard to navigate.
And in that gray space we begin to lose sight of the truth, we lose sight of the promises of God and instead focus on what we want to do, or what we want to feel, say or be instead of what God holds in front of us as the standard.
And His truth, His standard, is not just a set of rules for us to follow because He just wants to boss us around.
God’s decrees over our lives are for OUR GOOD. When we choose Him, we benefit. The boundaries, rules, dos and don’ts laid out in scripture by our Father are not to keep us FROM something but to keep us FOR something! To make us into the people He can use in His Kingdom…His timeline…His story.
When your heart argues with you, ask yourself this question:
Will whatever my heart is playing tug of war over
ultimately make me more or less like Jesus?
Because that’s the whole kit and caboodle of our lives…to be like Him and in so doing point people who need Him to Him.
That question silences the argument.
God desires to take our BIG problems of sin and make them smaller…to send us in the direction of His promises, His way of doing things…so that we ultimately are whole.
“But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”
Romans 7:17-25 MSG
Bam! #eatyourchicken