Master of Destruction

My kid is a destroyer.  Stuffed animals? She sucks on their ears.  Plastic toys? Thrown, in pieces, across the room.  Blocks? Rocketed against the wall, making lovely, little scratches in the paint.  What's best about it, however, is how much she enjoys it.  After accomplishing her demolition, she will look at me to see if I am watching her.  Slowly, a small smile will peak out from under her hands.  When she sees I am not angry, a full blown giggle ensues.  Mostly, because she knows I will clean up her mess and even set her up to destroy again.

As I was watching her tear apart a monkey who never had a chance of survival this morning, I was ruminating on the verse in the Bible about how we should all have faith like a child.  I mused how that could be possible when she's destroying everything in sight, leaving fluffy bits of monkey and tiny plastic pieces I won't find until I step on them barefooted.  And then, here is what I came up with.

Ellie's not yet 6 months old.  She doesn't understand that taking things apart all the time is not necessarily a good thing, just that that is what she knows what to do with the skills she possesses.  It's one of the few things babies can do well and she pursues it zealously; and with passion.  She also knows that if she makes a mistake, or a mess, I will be there to clean it up.  She is fearless, focused and undeterred in her task knowing that if she messes up, I am there to fix it. There is no questioning in her mind what our roles are, and who were are to each other.

Imagine how much different our lives would be if we were fearless, focused and undeterred in pursuit of what we believed we should be doing according to our gifts, our skill set and interests.  Imagine how differently we would approach things if we had the kind of trust in God that Ellie has in me to "right the wrong" if we make a mistake.  We would not be so passive! We would not be so afraid to fail, because we wouldn't think twice about God's ability to right the ship.

The world is full of fearful, passive adults who, in their desire to "make the right decision", never make a decision at all.  That's not how we're called to be! That's not who who we're called to be.

Take a tip from my daughter, Master of Destruction, today.  Do what you know you should do.  Do it with a fervor and passion you didn't know you possessed.  And if, perhaps, it doesn't work out as planned, know that God has a rescue plan already in place that will set you up for something bigger and better.  Like this gigantic tower of blocks in my living room I've been working on all morning while my little demo-goddess is asleep.  She's going to love it.