Learn the art of obedience
My entire world has been wrapped around raising my kids and being with my family this last almost 12 years.
When I had my daughter, every single thing in my life changed. I left my career, I discovered a hobby that would become a new passion, I started writing books, and I started out on this journey of relearning a lot of things that I never thought I knew.
Parenting has been really hard as of late, our a preteen has now discovered talking back, questioning everything, disrespectful tones and bullying her little brothers.
Some thing that I have had to talk a lot about over the last couple of months- is learning how to trust that when me and her father make a decision. When we make a rule it’s because we want to protect her and she needs to trust us even though she might not understand every detail.
So when we give boundaries like: she can’t be texting on her phone after certain hours, we need to preview everything that she wants to watch or listen to, or if she needs to do her chores and her schoolwork before she gets on the screen-you would think after 12 years of gaining relationship with my daughter that she would just jump at the chance of obeying me.
Literally nothing could be further from the truth. So many tears these last couple months of me praying to God that she wouldn’t learn how to respect and honor our decisions.
Last night, I told my daughter: “Learn the art of obedience- learn that you can trust me no matter what even though you might not understand.”
Mistakes when she’s 11 or 12 are very small, but she needs to learn how to obey and talk through things with us before she goes out into the world where mistakes can be life altering.
Every time that I think through parenting, the Lord reminds me about how he had to pursue relationship constantly with the children of Israel and he had to remind them daily of his love and his boundaries.
And it reminds me of my daily walk with him. He always knows the bigger picture and what is coming down the road. My job is to just listen and obey my good shepherd wherever he leads me.
And the more time I spend with the good Shepherd, the more I’m familiar with his voice and the direction he wants to take me, even though I might not understand. (Read John 10 all about the good Shepherd)
So as I’m taking a walk at 5:30 this morning, I am reminding myself of the art of obedience.
That it’s some thing that I could never truly master in this lifetime, but I am daily striving to remain close to the father, submit my heart to his well and know by faith that he has everything under control.
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Written by Christal Marshall
