“God let me down today.” Those were the words that flew out of Darcee’s mouth, my seven-year-old daughter, as she stormed away from me and headed towards her room crying.
I just stood there with a shocked look on my face. Then, I turned to my other daughter, Delilah, to verify if I heard her correctly.
I asked Delilah- “Did she just say, God, Let me down today?” At that moment, Delilah and I both started laughing because that was precisely what she said. (We were not laughing at her comment, we were laughing that we both needed verification that we heard her right.)
I have grown dramatically in my parenting skills over the years. I would have followed Darcee to her room in the past, questioning her the entire way. But, instead, I let her storm off and have her crying party before I went to check on her to see what all the fuss was about. I knew she needed time to process her feelings and emotions before she could explain to me what was really going on.
In order for Darcee’s statement to make sense, you need the backstory. Darcee is a very active and social child. She is just like her daddy in this area. They both thrive when they are surrounded by people and interacting.
I am usually pretty good at compromising and taking her need for other people to be around into consideration. I try to allow her to have a friend over at least once a week, if not every other week. However, I just could not handle it mentally or emotionally over the Christmas break. Darcee didn’t ask every day to have someone over, but it sure did feel like she asked every day.
Little did I know that every day she prayed that God would let her have a friend come over to play. When I said NO, she could not have anyone over, she blamed God for not answering her prayers. Can we all say- WOW!
I personally think God has a funny sense of humor. Especially when he has been trying to teach me a lesson and my stubbornness won’t cooperate. This is where God allows my children to step up and capture my attention to teach me the lesson.
Here it is…
In Darcee’s scenario, she prayed about having playdates but took zero action to actually plan a playdate. No phone calls were made. No friends were invited. No schedules coordinated. No permission was given for friends to be over. When the question was asked, and she was told no, she felt devastated and felt as if God had let her down.
I mean, she does have a point. She prayed about what she wanted but reacted the same way most adults act. We stop taking action to actually obtain the things we want.
How often do we pray for something and then wash our hands of the situation? How often do we ask for guidance and think our job is done?
Somewhere along the road of life, we seemed to forget that after asking for help, we still have to take action. Therefore, our only activity is not just asking for help, AKA prayer, but to physically start taking action also.
Take a few minutes to take inventory of your current prayers and see where you have stopped taking action. There is no better time than NOW to start taking action.
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