Perseverance....

Children are great teachers.  They require us to change, to grow, and to be flexible in dealing with their fickle behavior.  Every day is a different adventure, and we are not given a manual, so learning is done by trial and error.  Having children is transformative for most people.  You must adapt your ways to deal with them, because children are demanding by nature, and their self-centered vision of their world has to be gradually molded and formed so that they will be good people, citizens, stewards of this life.  There is no immediate gratification in child rearing - it's a process.  Rewarding, but definitely a process.

One of the things children teach us, just to put a positive spin on things, is perseverance.  There is nothing as dedicated as a child who wants something.  They badger and wheedle and relentlessly pursue us, hoping to eventually grind down the adult who is nominally in charge and get what they want.  It is not a random accident that they keep trying.  They do it because, all too often, it works, and they end up getting their way.  Their perseverance pays off.

God relentlessly pursues us, even more eagerly than a child pursues their momentary desire, because he created us, and he wants to be in our hearts and our lives.  He is dedicated to us, and continues to seek us out, to be available, to be present, so that all we need to do is reach out for him.  He is present, he is persistent, he is right there waiting for us to simply accept him.

In John 15: 16, we are told,

You did not choose me, but I chose you...

What humbling words those are.  We are often rejected in life, but in the most important relationship we can have, God chooses us.  How grateful I am that God perseveres.  My eternal salvation is based on his loving desire to have me, unworthy and all too often inadequate, in his presence.

Dear Lord, thank you for recklessly loving me, yesterday, today, tomorrow and through eternity.  It is the gift that passes all understanding.  Amen.