Just Like Babes

It’s funny how silly, little things in life can speak to us about deeper, spiritual truths.  

The other day I was feeding my 7 ½ month old pureed sweet potato {he JUST started eating food and is lovin’ it!}.  I started out with two cubes—I make a bunch ahead and freeze it in ice-cube trays, just in case you wondered! but, like the rest of the Haraldson children, it didn’t take him long to go through what was prepared and begin begging for more!

Knowing my son, I knew that he wouldn’t understand if I just walked away, and he was sure to get upset. So I gave him the spoon, knowing that it would distract him and make him happy while I thawed another cube for him.  Just as I suspected, that spoon fascinated him!  He turned it in his little hands, looked at it from all sides, popped it in his mouth and back out quickly, giggling, banged it on his tray and smiled proudly.  

As I walked back to the table, he was happy as could be, having forgotten for the moment that he was still hungry.  I gently reached out and took the spoon from his chubby ‘lil hand…

And off wailed the sirens!!!

He gave me a look as if to say, “WHY would you DO that to me?!?!?” horrified that I would rip the very essence of happiness from his hands.

I gently told him {and I’m sure he understood} that I needed the spoon to give him what he really wanted, some food.  What he had been waiting for.  But clearly, he wasn’t convinced.  Clearly I had deprived him of all joy and hope   :P  

While he was still crying, I filled the spoon and put it in his sweet, little pouting mouth.  When he closed his lips, he sniffled a little, still seemingly confused, and stopped crying.  

I smiled at him as it occurred to me how much we are all still just like babes.  We may grow bigger, learn to voice our emotions, develop the power and skills to do many things for ourselves, but this innate tendency never changes {Not without some serious Holy Spirit renewal!}.  

In this life there are so many needs, so many desires, hopes, longings…and the best of all of them are promised to us by our Creator.  He assured us that not only will He provide, but He will provide what is the very BEST for us, exactly what we need, and often what we never even knew we wanted!

But, there are also many spoons, as many ways to distract and temporarily satisfy as we can imagine—some God given, some self-sought.  And when we are living in one of the many phases of life where we are waiting for what we need, while we’re holding onto our spoons, it is so easy to place our focus on that empty spoon and lose sight of the fact that GOD WANTS TO FILL IT!  So that when He takes the spoon from us, we, in horror and dismay, question “WHAT is going on here?”  We don’t understand, we don’t have the perspective to recognize that His loving Hand is holding the spoon, filling it with good things, and waiting for the right moment to give us what we want.  We can’t seem to step back with any great ease and understand that while He seems to be away, and we’re happily playing with a spoon, He is off preparing just what we’ll need next.