Don't Eat That

My sweet little 2-year-old, Stephen, has been having tummy issues. We aren’t sure what started it. We just know where we’ve ended up. He’s been struggling with acid reflux and stomach pain. We are now giving him a bland diet and it’s resolved all issues with his stomach that is.

You see within the past month little man found out how to open the fridge. He happily helps himself to anything from the fridge or pantry whenever he pleases. Regardless of mom’s “no”. Trying to keep this little guy on a bland diet isn’t easy.

Yesterday for breakfast he had a banana, apple sauce, tortilla, and rice cereal. He felt like he was living the life.

Lunch was a different story.
“I know you want bacon, but we’re having special food to help your tummy get better. Bacon will hurt your belly right now. You can have applesauce, bread, banana, rice cake, cereal, tortilla, or noodles. These will help it get better.”
“NO!! I want bacon!” he responds pulling on the fridge.
This went back and forth with many different things until he finally settled on some gentle food for his belly.

This morning I was woken up by him standing next to my bed eating a protein bar.
Me - “What are you eating?”
Stephen - “A strawberry bar… My belly hurts.”
Yes, of course, it does….

Do you know what conversation this reminds me of?

“You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” - Genesis 2:16-17

“The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it.” Genesis 3:6

“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Luke 11:9-13

God is referenced many times as our Father. Just like a parent, He says no. He isn’t saying no in a spiteful tortuous way: “No, you can’t have that bacon. I know you love it and I just really don’t want you to have it. I enjoy saying no to you more than I enjoy seeing you enjoy that bacon. You know what? I really like bacon. Mmmm, this is so good.”

That is not our heavenly Father. If you ask and knock and seek and the answer seems to be no, He has a good reason. He’s not just holding out on you and laughing at you. He’s protecting you from something you may not understand.

Just like Eve and Stephen, we may not understand. We may want it so bad and ignore the no. The no that wasn’t just a no, but an ‘I’m protecting you’. We then end up finding out why. “My belly hurts.”

The one thing that it said is always a yes from God? The Holy Spirit, help. Help to hear His no, strength to persevere through the temptation, self-control to listen, peace in not getting what we want, faithfulness to Him regardless of His answer, patience to see His plan come to fruition, etc.

All we have to do? Seek the Holy Spirit, in the highs and lows, in the day-to-day. Due to a challenge that I was given, I have been doing this, this week. My week has not been easy by any means, but wow what a difference this has made despite it all.

The challenge? Turn on a timer or use some sort of a prompt that occurs multiple times a day, when the timer goes off or your queue happens stop and turn to God in prayer. Give Him whatever you got. Some examples from my week: “I finally got that thing done. I’m so excited. Today is going so well.” “I’m starting to fade Lord. Help me to be present and not spiral.” “I’m having a really hard time. I feel like I did such a bad job today and now they’re mad at me and they’re thinking the same thing: I’m a bad parent. Help me to see the truth and not want to just give up.”

Will you join me in this challenge?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Upside Down Way

Up until the moment that I wrote this, I’ve viewed Abram in quite a negative light. “He’s so passive. Besides going where God calls, He doesn’t seem to follow God in any of these situations.” While Abram has moments of not trusting God, he also has moments of reflecting Jesus and what Jesus stood for. “Now, Lot who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they could not stay together, and there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock…So Abram said to Lot, ‘Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives. Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.’” Genesis 13:5-9 CSB Abram was not avoiding conflict here. He faced it. Did he lay d...
Read more

You Don't Have to be Perfect

“He also said to Him, ‘I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.’ But he said, ‘Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?’ He said to him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half….When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River. Genesis 15:7-10,17-18 CSB This is an obscure weird occurrence for us to read about. Surprisingly it was weird in Abram’s time as well, but for very different reasons. The instructions that God gave to Abram were something he was familiar with. It was a common practice wh...
Read more

Worshiping Our Savior, the Creator

"You are to take seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female, and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky – in order to keep offspring alive throughout the earth.” Genesis 7:2 (CSB) Once I was able to get past the initial shock that it wasn’t just 2 of each animal, as I had grown up thinking, I was then curious about why He was so specific and why there needed to be more of the clean animals for them to survive than the unclean. Was it because of the Jewish laws of only being allowed to eat clean animals? “Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.” Genesis 9:3 (CSB) No, the Jewish laws weren’t established yet. They were free to eat any animal. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Genesis 8:20 (C...
Read more