Ow Me of Little Faith

Thank you all for praying and please continue to remember our family. While waiting to see how all of the resent struggles will work out for our good, I’ve felt like God wanted me to pile up some “stones” to remind me of all that He has done for us in the past. “Ow Me of Little Faith” is the first of those stones.

Joshua 4: 6 - 7

“.... Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them......”

Ow Me of Little Faith  

Matthew 18:3

And He said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

With Emily graduating soon, I find myself reminiscing about her kindergarten days. There are even days when I have to do a double take as I see those huge, brown eyes still filled with such child like faith that she looks like my little kindergartener all over again.

With the exception of a very tough time of testing, she has always seemed to have this excitement about approaching her God. She goes to Him with the same assurance and confidence that she used to have when bounding through the door as the ice cream truck made its way into our neighborhood. She was so confident that she didn't just come seeking one dollar for herself.  She often brought a friend, or two or three, and asked for dollars for the ice cream truck.

I remember when “ow me of little faith” was worried that she would be disappointed when God didn’t let her take the day off from school. She kept asking if we could skip school and work for the day. Normally, she loved to go to school but she really had her heart set on staying home that day.

Just like every other morning, we prayed in the car on the way to school. I reached back to hold her hand and prayed over our day. Normally, she would end her prayer with, "Mommy, you didn't close your eyes." and then giggle at the thought of me driving and closing my eyes.  This time though she prayed, “And God pleeeeeaaaassssssssse let me go back home today.” As we pulled into the parking lot, I tried to explain to her that I had a lot of work to do and apologized for not being able to take her back home.

I’m sure God must have been amused with me as I drove to work praying that she wouldn’t be too disappointed when He didn’t answer her prayer the way she wanted. I had barely made it into work when I received the school’s call saying, “We’re sorry but the power has gone out and it is too cold for the children to stay. You need to come back and take Emily home.”

That child giggled all the way home. That was the day that “ow me of little faith” realized my child could go over my head straight to God anytime she wanted. But it also served as a challenge to me to approach God with the same excitement and confidence - not a confidence that He will give me what I want but a confidence that He loves me and wants me to share all of my concerns and desires with Him.

I’ve had lots of little nagging concerns in the back of my mind lately. Reminiscing about Emily’s prayers have made me realize that I really need to bring all of those little nagging thoughts to Him. I’m still working on creating a habit of bringing everything to Him; but I must say that as relieved as I was to give it all to Him last night, I just can’t imagine that this will be a difficult habit to dive into.