Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

God's will

Have it your way

I’ve been reading a book that tells, in fiction style, stories of biblical men who led the Israelites out of Egypt and while wandering in the desert. They followed the Lord’s leading — a cloud by day; a pillar by night. When God moved, they moved. They didn’t know where they were going or how long they would stay once they got there, wherever “there” was, or whether they’d have water or food or shade. The Lord led them and they followed, totally dependent on His faithfulness and goodness.

And if your familiar with this story at all, you know that the people didn’t follow without complaint. They whined and complained and wished for slavery again even though they were free. And God answered even their whining.

He gave them what they asked, but sent leanness into their soul. — Psalm 106:15

A certain fast food burger joint made a name for themselves by telling customers: “have it your way.” Meaning, of course, that a customer could personalize and customize his burger to suit his tastes.

I wonder what this says about our mentality as a culture. Has having things “our way” made us lean in soul?

I often tell my kids, maybe not in the same words but with the same meaning, “Okay, have it your way.” As in, you don’t want to nap today? Okay, have it your way, but you’ll be in bed after dinner. Or, you don’t want to pick up your toys right now? Okay, have it your way, you’ll miss out on stories because you’ll be cleaning up?

This use of “have it your way” is completely different than what the burger chain intended. And I wonder if it’s what God meant when he gave the complaining Israelites what they asked for.

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say a version of this back to God: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Some days, I feel like I’m fighting to have my way with the day and when I come to the end of myself, I throw up my hands and say, “Fine, God, have it Your way.” Where I want to be is in a place where I start the day saying, “Your will be done,” even if it means I deny myself what I want to do and instead do what the Lord leads.

Today, I have fought to get a few minutes on the computer — to blog, to read a few articles, to answer some e-mail. Instead, I’ve bought groceries, washed dishes, played games with the kids and now I’m in an epic battle with our son for a nap while fielding unending requests from our daughter about a snack. I only have so many hours before I have to start dinner and my husband gets home and then it’s bedtime routine and then I’m exhausted and there goes my day.

I was called to be a writer before I was called to be a parent, and both things are important to me. I will fight for both of them with everything I have but one will inevitably be the loser. (Honestly, all you author moms out there, I don’t know how you do it and I wonder if I’m doing this whole thing wrong.) And when I choose my kids and their urgent needs, a part of my writing life dies.

Saying to God, “Your will be done” is no easy or painless thing.

In another book I’m reading, the author describes this petition of the Lord’s prayer this way:

How different from the prayers of “help me get my way,” “make everything turn out the way I want it to” and “bless my projects” that we are so often disposed to offer! The more we are able to internalize this petition–“Thy will be done”–the more complete our journey to maturity in Christ.

So if asking God to give us what we want produces a leanness of soul, then asking for His will to be done must produce the opposite: a meaty, muscular faith and trust that can withstand the toughest of challenges.

Oh, how I’d much rather be a couch potato Christian. Instead God calls His followers to walk in faith, to exercise trust and to submit to His leadership.

Every day, we are faced with the same choice: to have it our way or to say to God, have it Your way.

So, which will it be?

Freaky Friday

Note: I won’t have a Saturday Smiles post this week due to a book review scheduled for tomorrow as part of a blog tour. (Be sure to check it out, though. It’s a good one!) Saturday Smiles will resume next week, as long as I don’t have another day like today.

I should have suspected the kind of day it was going to be when our son came charging into our room in the middle of the night, scared of thunder, and our daughter followed a few hours later having wet her bed. I’m protective of sleep because I seem to have had so little of it since becoming a parent five years ago and especially when entering a weekend of solo parenting. I wanted to start the weekend fresh, ready to take on the world, not already feeling like my regular coffee consumption just wasn’t going to cut it.

Pair the less-than-restful sleep with a mostly cloudy day of intermittent rain and I was ready to curl up with said coffee and a novel and ignore the rest of the world for a little while.

But today my husband had a second interview for a job he’d interviewed for earlier in the week. So, he set out early to make his third drive to Lancaster this week. And because it was raining and we only have one car (I know, this is a “First World Problems” kind of sob story, isn’t it?), we skipped morning storytime, intending to attend afternoon storytime at the library after my husband got back.

The kids and I ate lunch and checked the weather to see if we might have to walk to the library anyway. Then I got a text from my husband that he was headed home with a job offer. Good news! At least, that was my first reaction. And I wondered if maybe we’d skip the library visit so we could talk about the offer and whether or not he was going to take it.

Less than 20 minutes after the text, a couple from church stopped by with an envelope of cash for us. Just to help us out. Overwhelming. We were already planning to eat dinner out tonight so my husband could meet his ride for the weekend retreat, and I wasn’t sure we’d really be able to afford it, or for him to chip in for gas. Problem solved. Praise the Lord. The gift also gave us a little breathing room for buying some food staples.

I’ve been such a whiner lately about whether God knows what we’re facing and whether He hears our prayers and whether He even cares what we’re going through right now. Oh, He cares. I pondered this verse today: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you.”

My mind was anything but peaceful as I job searched for me while my husband was at his interview. And it became unsettled again when he got home. We spoke briefly before I hauled the kids to the library, and he told me some of the terms of the offer.

I got the kids signed in and settled in. Within minutes, Corban was asleep on my lap, the first sign that the change in routine had us all out of sorts. Minutes after falling asleep, he peed his pants, and consequently my pants, too. So, there I was sitting with a large almost-three-year-old on my soaking wet lap with a 4-and-a-half-year old on the other side of the room quietly listening to stories. And the diaper bag was in the van. So I texted my husband and asked him to come even though he’d been home only a few minutes and had barely had time to eat lunch. He showed up about 15 minutes later and I carted the boy child to the car to change his pants. I left my purse and license inside, so we couldn’t go home for me to change.  I debated whether I should go back in with wet urine spots on my pants or just wait outside in the car with Corban. I chose the Billy Madison method and went back in, pee pants and all.

We managed to make our craft and escape the library without further incident. We made it home, where we talked more about the job and I learned I had about an hour to ask questions and decide if I was on board with this next step. Here are some of the points I had to ponder:

  • This is an entry-level job at Chick-Fil-A, but the owner is willing to pay my husband the highest hourly rate she can pay for that level. So, it’s not a quick financial fix for us by any means, but even with commuting for a little while, he’ll still be making more than double what he makes now. (Which if you do the math is practically nothing.)
  • Holidays are their busiest times, so he can’t take vacation when most people would have vacation, like between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
  • On Tuesday, my husband was not so excited about this possibility. Today, he was all for it.
  • We’re not sure whether we can actually afford to move to Lancaster on what he’ll be making.
  • Just before I texted him to come rescue me at the library, another place called to offer him an interview. Seriously, after months of hearing nothing from anyone, we get two in one day???
  • We’ve been waiting so long on God that now it seems like we’re rushing into something.
  • We only have one car, and when he works days, if we haven’t moved, the kids and I will be without wheels for most of a day.
  • He won’t have to work Sundays or evenings, which was one of our main criteria for a job.

While we were talking all this out and Phil was packing for his weekend getaway, our doorbell rang. Standing on our front porch was another person from church with a box FULL of leftover food from a funeral dinner today. Like tons of food. Soup. Lunch meat. Rolls. Cheese. Stuff that hasn’t been in our fridge for a few months because we’re working with a lean budget. After he left, I lost it and started crying in the kitchen while putting food away.

God is so crazy, unbelievably, faithfully, hysterically good to us. And I am a colossal whiner.

So we decided. Phil will take this job. It is a step in the right direction, even if it feels more like a stepping stone in the midst of a raging river than a bridge across torrential waters carrying us to safety. So, yes, my graduate-degree-holding husband is going to work at Chick-Fil-A. Yes, we are Christians. Yes, we like their food. Yes, we’re glad they’re not open on Sundays. No, we don’t hate gay people.

We had already planned to eat at another Chick-Fil-A tonight because it was a convenient meeting place for Phil’s ride to the Poconos. While waiting for our food there, Phil’s future employer called to confirm. So, I thought that was funny. We ate chicken. The kids played and made friends. We met up with the rest of the guys going to the retreat. I drove the kids home in the rain and the dark.

And because the day couldn’t get any calmer, I noticed when we were just a few feet out of the parking lot that a bug of biblical proportions (you know, about two inches or so) had attached itself to the passenger window, which was down. Because it was icky looking and I didn’t want it flying around in the car, I put the window up, thinking I would trap it or kill it. I think maybe I maimed it. At the next stoplight, I put the window down a crack to see if it would fly away and instead it dropped into the car. Talk about distracted driving! I pulled over in a grocery story lot, having kept one eye on the bug and one eye on the road. I had to shake the floor mat a little to get it to fly away, but we got that problem solved.

The kids and I ended up at the grocery store at 7 o’clock on a Friday night. They were all confused because it was dark. We needed milk, mostly, and a few other things and by this time, my nerves were so fried that I snapped at the bagger when he made what he thought was a funny comment about WIC checks. “Hey, they’re no picnic for us either!” I said. I might have smiled as I said it, but at that point, I was just ready to be home.

After a minor thunderstorm, at least one child is now snuggled all tight in bed and the other one is quiet. Me? I’m headed for that novel, finally, and maybe a cup of chamomile tea.

Tomorrow is another day.