Lessons I Have Learned from Ashley about God - Part 1

We recently changed our flooring, and it left us with a gap at the threshold of our back door, until Jason got it repaired. In order to prevent the cold air from coming inside, we put a towel at the bottom of the door. What I noticed was that Ashley was the only one who consistently put that towel there. Watching her with the towel got me to thinking about her behavior. I doubt she knew why the towel was there, and of course she couldn’t question it. It appeared one day, evidently we wanted it there, and so she put it there. There are many things around our house that she does like this. She just watches us, and follows what we do. She never needs a reason or an explanation. There are things we ask her to do, that she immediately does. Of course, since she is nonverbal, she can’t question why or argue about it. And most of the time she seems completely fine with stopping what she is doing, and performing whatever task we ask. She usually doesn’t complain, argue (in her way), or put it off to a later time. And most of the time she does not know or understand the purpose around it. She just trusts us and does it. There have been a lot of things we have asked of her, that I’m certain I would question or fight. There are times what we ask Ashley to do is scary or painful, for example the medical procedures. And she may resist these to the point where we have to coax her or calm her down, but many times I know she could fight much harder if she wanted. But instead she chooses to obey what we have asked. Over the years, she has learned fighting doesn't change the end result, and just makes the process harder. Pondering all this, I realized that is exactly what God wants from us, just to do what he asks in obedience, regardless of whether we know or understand the purpose or the outcome. He wants us to be able to trust Him to the point where we don’t question why, even if it is really painful to go through at that time. That is really hard to do; I have met and heard of a few people who seem to have this faith. But most of us get stuck in the why or purpose of it or we have a counter plan that we offer. I know that God loves us, however we respond, but I think it pleases him just a little more when we have the trust and faith just to unquestioningly obey, not even caring what the purpose is. Of course, in my mind I was aware of this, just watching how Ashley responds to the world around her makes it just a little clearer to me. Maybe I should follow my daughter's example and stop fighting the process, since it doesn't change the end. 19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. John 5:19-20 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. Isaiah 55:8 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding Proverbs 3:5 Like Created In His Image on Facebook originally posted January 2013