Zap Me God

A few years back I had been fighting with God quite a bit. At the time it was nothing new to me, I couldn't seem to help myself. That particular round was over what I wanted to do and didn't wanna do. I wanted to be able to have an easy time from that point forward. If I must have spiritual growth, I wanted it handed to me. I didn't want to earn it or struggle for it. Tired, I just wanted peace. Gently, I wanted God to zap all the knowledge and insights I needed without the work. I figured I had been through enough and was due a vacation, one that lasted the rest of this lifetime. The real irony was that I knew if I did what God wanted; I would have the peace I craved...eventually. There is always a catch, that 'eventually' was what I wanted to avoid. I just wasn't in the mood to go through any more labor intensive spiritual growth; I figured I was due a break.

A friend's child showed me just how inappropriate my behavior was. Early one evening, he was running around inside a store with his favorite toy despite his mother's asking him stop, in other words he was acting like a typical three year old.. She warned him, "If you don't stop running from me, you will lose the privilege of playing with your toy." He didn't listen. Having her chase him all around that store was great fun in his mind. When she caught up with him, she took his toy away from him as promised. Things were no longer fun. Now he was bawling his eyes out. Crying, "I want my toy." "It's mine." His mother kept reasoning with him "Remember I told you that if you run away from me, you would lose the privilege of playing with your toy." He still wasn't in the mood to listen, which was too bad because he wouldn't have lost the privilege of playing with his toy if he had.

Suddenly, I realized that I was behaving like this kid; I was crying and whining that I wanted to run around without supervision and any restrictions and I wanted to play with my favorite toy, i.e. spiritual growth. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to, which didn't include playing any of God's rules for spiritual growth. My behavior had to look the same as that little boy's to God. Screaming my head off over something I could have easily controlled. All I had to do was stop running from God. Wow, what a concept! Mind you, if God decided to zap me today with all the knowledge and insights I needed tomorrow I wouldn't have a problem with it, but it isn't necessary. I know that I will get to where I need to be, when I need to be there and I will have learned the lessons I would have needed to know to understand whatever situation I find myself in.