One day at school my class and I were playing outside, running around, screaming and laughing like very young kids love to do. Our Head Start building has its own fenced in playground and in our building there is an office that parents visit often to get help with certain things that their families or kids might need. On this day one of my kid's mom was inside there talking to my co-worker about something, and although the child knew her mom was in there she was content to play but kept looking at the door to see if she was coming out yet. I knew that when the mom was ready to leave the child was going to be very upset and have a melt-down at being left there, even though she happily stayed with me every morning. After a few minutes my co-worker came outside and took the little girl by the hand and lead her over to the tricycles out of the view of her office door, allowing the mom to sneak away. At first I was like "poor baby, why would they trick her intentionally like that" but then I realized that they were just sparing her the tears. The girl knew she was safe at school and she knew she would go home shortly so there was no need to have a melt-down because mom had to leave her there. This was an act of kindness to the child. She trusted my co-worker and willingly went around the corner with her even though she didn't know why. She was happy and unaware that she was being protected from heart break. Later when she asked me where her mom was, I simply said she would be back soon, which she accepted and we had no melt-down.
Then I started wondering, how often must God do, or at least desire to do the same thing for us. How He must try to take us around the corner and spare us from things that He knows will hurt us. We often think about God keeping us from fun, exciting or pleasurable things, but thats not the case at all He is not trying to deprive us, He is just trying to pull us in a direction that is best for us. If we trust Him and are willing to follow Him wherever He asks us to go and are willing to keep our eyes on Him, He will be actively trying to guide us and hedge us in for our good. We will be like that little girl who didn't even know what she was being protected from. There are things that we think we want and things that look really good, but those same things can hurt us and if we are just staring at them. No matter how many rules we hear rules about not participating in them, we will be very focused on what we are missing out on. But if we are holding hands with the Creator then we won't even give those things a second thought and God can save us the heart break that would have been inevitable without His leading. "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you are not willing." Matthew 23:37 God is not a giant kill joy in the sky, He is a loving Father who wants us close to Him where we are safe and well cared for.
I pray that we would be like a little child and take God's hand and trust His love and intentions so much that we would let Him lead us where ever He wants us to go. He is likely steering us away from very hurtful situations that we will hopefully never even know were a possibility. And on top of that He is leading us toward what He made us for, which is the only place that we can be satisfied with this life. So keep playing and laughing and living and when God asks you to come around the corner with Him trust His heart! You may never even know what you have to be thankful for as a result, but you can trust that you are right where you should be.
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