Give Me Jesus

There is chocolate... in my hair. Not just a little, but what seems like an entire cookie smeared in all its glory in my ponytail. It must have happened sometime between breaking up the fight over the snowman blanket and getting on to my two year old for using the couch as a napkin.

Can I tell you a secret? I never wanted children. It is the running joke in the family actually. All the way through high school, until I married my wonderful husband, I was content with life being just me and my spouse. I never considered myself "parent" material. I am impatient. I have a tendency to speak my mind, not always in an uplifting or encouraging way most of the time (ok, more than I care to admit). I am selfish with my time. I am a "me" time mom! I could probably do "me" time from sunup to sundown. I was absolutely sure that if I ever had offspring, they would be the most selfish hard to like people in the world. Me, parenting? What a disaster. Yet, here I am. 10 years into this ride and four children. Four little people depending on me to show them how to live. And they are helpless aren't they? We teach them everything from how to walk to how to blow their nose. It is a nasty dirty job.

 And everything depends on us. Especially as homeschooling moms! We don't just have to teach them how to get along with their peers, we have to teach them to READ! Forget Algebra! But isn't that really the problem from the very beginning? We are so unqualified. From the moment they hand us that tiny squirmy bundle, we realize how very little we really know. This life that has been entrusted into our care. He is going to need everything from us. Our time when we don't have it. Our patience when it is running thin. Our guidance when we feel lost. It is hard. Especially when our well is dry.

 In the monotony of life, it is so easy to let our wells run empty. There is so much to do during the day. Most days, I hit the ground running, and collapse not long after the kids do. Too many days like that, and I start getting crabby. There is only so long that I can draw on my own strength before it fails me. 

 

Let me tell you another secret. I am in love with my children. Deeply in love. Each one of them. The chocolaty kisses, the chubby fingers, their smiles that remind me so much of their father. When I think about my babies, I swell up inside. I have loved them since I felt them in the womb, and there is nothing in this world that I wouldn't do for them. Nothing.

                                             

 We are called for a purpose. I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared. But, this is my calling. These lives that were placed in our care, these are our purpose. Teaching them the ways of the Lord, growing them up on a strong foundation, teaching them to love, to desperately love, their God and His people. We are raising the lights of the next generation. These children that we are shepherding, they will be the soldiers on the front lines of tomorrow. Their world will look much different than our did, and our job becomes that much more important.

I don't know how to do that. So often, I am struggling with my own flesh, it seems impossible to teach anyone else. I do know this, He will not give me a task that He will not equip me for. I feel a lot like Paul in his letter to the Corinthians:



And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

2 Corinthians 2:1-3

 

I still know nothing. I still give into my flesh. I still struggle with my faith. As much as I think I know, I know nothing. I do know this: Jesus, and Him crucified. I have hope in my Savior. I truly believe that He will meet my need. I have seen Him do it, again and again. When I have reached the limit of my knowledge, He meets me there, when I yield to Him.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:13-16

It is only by His Spirit that we understand His Truths. It is by that same Spirit that we are filled. It is that same Spirit that bears witness.

This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Hebrews 10:16-18

 

“For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring. They will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses” (Is. 44:3-4).

 

As I am writing this blog, a song begins to play. "In the morning, when I rise, Give me Jesus. You can have all of this world. Give me Jesus."

 

Aren't His promises wonderful? He makes our job so easy. Our job is just to show them how badly, how horribly, how desperately we need a Savior. To show them that we are not perfect, and our only hope is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides, the God who provided His own Lamb for the offering and His own Spirit as our helper through this crazy life. His Spirit that fills us. His Spirit that goes before us in teaching our children and molding their hearts.

We are not perfect, and we never will be on this side of Heaven.

 Our job is only to model a repentant and humble heart before the Lord and pray that their heart cry will be:  "Give me Jesus."

His Spirit will do the rest.