High Expectations of God. . . and mothers

My daughter and I just completed a school project (ugh). She is a creative child, and she has an independent streak as wide as the Mississippi. After some deliberation, she decided she wanted to dress up like the subject of her project, a 19th century American painter by the name of George Caleb Bingham.

After a little research, we discovered that Mr. Bingham wore a suit that looked something like Doc Baker on Little House on the Prairie. My daughter said I could make her a suit like that in her size – or just whip up a vintage art shirt. Whatever. She was easy.

Are you kidding me? The project is due in two days. I couldn’t manage that if I had two years.

I could tell that it was a huge disappointment that we were going to have to go for a more simplistic approach. I threw out some ideas.

My ideas didn’t “meet expectations” and she was sure her project wouldn’t either - if she listened to me.

I sometimes approach God in the same manner. I have the whole thing worked out in my head. This is how the answer to my prayers should go. God, whip this up in two days and all will be well. Everything will turn out great. Everybody will think I am really something special. And I just might think so too if you do this for me.

Thankfully, God doesn’t get quite as frustrated with me as I do with my daughter. And, while he can pull off anything I can envision, his ways are higher than my ways.

So, while I try to bring my daughter back down to earth and insert a bit of realism into her pie-in-the-sky ideals, God is actually widening my scope of how things could be.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).