Friday, January 20, 2012

Parenting for Dummies Part 4

If you missed 1-3...

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. (Proverbs 3:5-7)


Like clockwork, Chaia has been upchucking after her 9 o'clock feeds. She gets potassium in that feed and I think it does a number on her tummy. (I promise this is the last puke post for at least a week haha.)

So, after two weeks of wearing it, watching her erupt all over herself, all over the blanket, all over everything, I've learned a few things. Today I brought in a number of burp cloths and little towels. I was like a freaking Boy Scout. Nicely folded vomit catchers in place and upon first gag noise, I assumed position. Propped her up, grabbed a vomit catcher and placed it directly under her chin and prepared for her to initiate launch sequence.

She projectile hurled over my vomit catcher, onto the blanket, onto the carpet and a little on me.

As the old adage goes "Man plans (or prepares), God laughs."

Proverbs has a word for us. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." I wonder if 'understanding' and 'preparation' could be interchangable.

Shaina and I were 'unwise' to get married at age 20 after our sophomore year of college. We weren't 'prepared' for marriage.

Word to the wise. Sometimes our 'preparedness' is our biggest competitor to our trust in God.

Sometimes our 3 year, 5 year and 10 year plans are idols that steal our obedience.

You can't prepare for life.

And you certainly can't prepare for parenting.

Shaina and I have been married for 8 years and have had discussions and plans that were to prepare us for parenting.

None of those involved how to parent this wonderfully, beautifully mutated gene baby that God has given us. We have these books in the nursery about parenting and how we can prepare our child to reach every milestone...We filled out a birthing plan that we were to distribute at the hospital so everyone knew our plans and how we were preparing to have this baby. (Which couldn't have deviated much more from the prepared plan than it did!)

Shaina and I tried to prepare for this Columbus Church Plant by finishing our time at our beloved Wadsworth church in December and beginning in Columbus in January. We didn't even make it to October at Wadsworth and it is now going to be April for our hire date in Columbus.

My point. Don't let preparedness (or your so-called lack of preparedness) lead you into disobedience.

You have no idea what you're doing.

The more you try to shrug that reality off, the more of a fool you will be.

What I'm NOT saying:

I'm not saying you should be a moron. Trusting God does not mean you don't lay out a vomit catcher. It just means you don't find your security or trust or hope in it.

I'm not saying, planning is evil. I'm just saying the day that your preparations take precedence over the provision of God, is the day that you've lost your soul to gain the world.

The best way you can prepare for the rest of your life is Proverbs 3:5-7.

Trust God with all your heart. (Do you believe Him to be Trustworthy?)

Lean not on your own understanding. (Do you believe yourself to not be trustworthy?)

In all your ways submit to Him. (Are the deepest affections of your heart surrendered to God or worshipped instead of God?)

He will make your paths straight. (Do you believe that God has good in store for your life?---Even if 'good' is not how you would have planned?)

Do not be wise in your own eyes, Fear the Lord and shun evil. (You have no idea what you are doing. There is one God and you are not Him. Would others in your life say that you believe this?)

The best way to prepare for God's work in your life is to stop preparing.

It's the only way.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say that I enjoy reading your blogs. You really make a person think and I want to thank you for that. Praise God for whom all blessing flow..........

Anonymous said...

AMEN! There is a saying, "best laid out plans of mice and men." I definately see the correlation between the mice and mans brain,:) but it goes way beyond that--God is ultimately in control of ALL things. We pray, we seek and we obey--not our plans but HIS because as we seek, trust, and obey it is in HIS leading us in what is right. It takes some of us ole hard-headed stubborn folks time to learn to obey but once we do, WOW is our life ever changed. Thanks Ben for your wisdom--all HIS plans will come to the three of you, just in HIS time. Keep the puck catcher handy, it still makes us feel good. Have a very blessed day. love, Denise & Glen

Steph said...

Proverbs 3:5-6 have been my life verses for awhile now...but I always stopped there. I should have kept going to verse 7 as well. Thanks for sharing this post!