I made this observation about a week ago, and I thought I'd share it.
Last week, I was rushing out the door to Callie's story time and Gabriel's doctor's appointment, I forgot to bring the kids water cups. Not such a big deal for Callie, as she can drink through a straw, but Gabe has not yet mastered that skill yet.
The doctor's appointment took longer than I expected and we ended up stopping in at the local restaurant to get lunch since it was much later than the kids normal eating time. But alas, I had no cup for Gabriel so I ended up having to use the straw as a syringe and drop the water into his mouth. As he eagerly opened his mouth and swallowed each gulp of clean, fresh water I realized that he had no idea what was in the straw the first time I offered it to him, but he opened his mouth for it anyway.
It could have been anything, water, milk, juice, soda, and he would have swallowed it. It could have also been polluted, full of germs, or any number of things wrong with it, but he would've eagerly opened his mouth and gulped it down.
How many times have I been guilty of this? My earliest memory of this was when my "best friend" made fun of my developing body in junior high. I eagerly gulped it down and did hundreds of sit ups and push ups every night and wore heavily padded push up bras because I believed what she was telling me.
I search and search "trusted sources" to find solutions to problems I'm having with the kids and eagerly swallow whatever they're telling me. That I'm a bad parent for disciplining my children, that the way I'm feeding them is inadequate, that I'm not taking enough time for myself . . . I listen to all this and willingly take it all in. I watch the news and fear my children's school years.
I take all this in and willing swallow the worry that it gives me. And the only thing it leads to is making me sick. The "sources" that I trusted so completely would have me swallow poison because they are of the world. Even evangelists now are not always grounded in the Word and are feeding poisons to their followers.
I wonder how many of us are like a child, that we swallow whatever we are given and we digest it, and it slowly poisons us into thinking that we know more than our God. Or it poisons us into worrying so much about every little thing that we forget that worrying cannot add a single hour to our life?
I've been dedicating too much of my time to listening to everyone and not seeking God's will in it. I plan on weighing advice that I am given, be it from a friend, an expert on TV, or a person in authority more carefully than I have been. I need to judge more on what's worth swallowing and what I should just spit out. But don't just listen to me, search it for yourself!
GULP!
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