Having kids who bake is a dangerous thing. I know it sounds lovely, but there’s only so much experimentation with sugar that can happen before you gain fifteen pounds, get tired of the mess, or something explodes.

Case in point: A child was making caramel sauce for an ambitious birthday cake, and it seized into toffee which turned into concrete in the bottom of my favorite cooking pot. Enter an hour of aerobic stirring while adding cream; the result was an extra two and a half cups of caramel sauce, which was not going to help me stay away from sugar.

So in desperation after a week of baking frenzy, I asked the kids if we could teach them to make green smoothies, or salad, or something, in a what-have-we-done kind of despair. And Afton, my son who makes professional-level biscotti, breads, and pizza, answered, “You can teach us, but that doesn’t mean we’ll make it.”

Gaaahhh.

I can’t be too hard on him, because I tell the Lord the same thing so often, in so many words. He says things like this:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 

– Philippians 4:4

…and also, this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.

– Proverbs 3:5

…and I basically respond with, “You can tell me to _____, but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.” I complicate my life by trying to do things my own way until finally going back to Him and follow His instructions that I should have just obeyed in the first place.

If the Lord has said, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (and He has), then I need to do those things in order to see the breakthrough I’m waiting for.

Could it be that our breakthrough is waiting for us to rejoice in advance? Could it be that when we wait to rejoice until we feel our circumstances give us a good reason to, we delay our own breakthrough? What might happen if instead, we followed His instructions and rejoiced at all times because He is good and we can trust Him? 

We gain so much when we see with His perspective. We tend to make things so complicated, but often, He has already told us exactly what to do.

Just like we tell our kids.

In the afternoon on a fall day, our kids had been outside for all of ten minutes before they asked to come back inside. “It’s freezing,” they said.

I checked the thermometer and noticed the temperature was in the upper thirties – definitely, scientifically, not freezing. So being the sympathetic mom I am, I said, “No. You’re Alaskan, get used to the cold again.”

Five minutes later one of the kids asked again, and I reconsidered. Okay, let’s make a deal.

“You can come in early if you plant the garlic,” I said. “This is the last day to do it before it snows, so if you do that, you can come in as soon as you’re done.”

“Okay…” she hesitated, “but I don’t know how.”

Ever feel like that? God says “Do this” and we’re like, Uhh… just like this kid.

So I said, “Grab the book right there. The skinny green one that says Gardening With Vegetables.”

The child grabs three fat books in succession that do not say anything about vegetables or gardening, then declares the book isn’t there.

I point to it for her. “That one. No, to the right. The skinny one, right there. It’s green—no, lighter green…GARDENING WITH VEGETABLES, I said — yes, there you go.” Good grief. 

We both review the garlic section for thirty seconds. The child goes outside with instructions, a garlic bulb, and unveiled skepticism.

She returns two minutes later, declaring the ground is frozen, and requests to use Vin’s shotgun to dig post holes for the garlic cloves. Alaska grown, I tell you.

Vin chimes in to remind her of the current temperature, and introduces her to the tool called “shovel.”

Thirty minutes later, all the children start filtering back in the house, right on time (what do you know!)…and I didn’t have to plant the garlic.

In sum:
Gardening — check.
Homeschooling science lesson — check, check.
Parenting win — check.

I’ll be in here knitting (and trying not to eat all the biscotti) if anyone needs anything else.

__________
This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume 5: Obedience to Move Forward, available now on our site and everywhere books are sold.