I WIN!

I enjoy watching people. While at Panera recently, I saw many individuals and groups of people come and go. But one small boy stands out. In fact, I would have had to try very hard not to notice him.

He was three or four years old and arrived with his grandma, who met a friend. The boy sat on the inside of the booth while his grandma and friend chatted. The two women rarely took a break, even as the boy did his best to disrupt them. He asks questions, told stories and peered into the next booth. He walked and bounced on the seat and chatted with the with people waiting for their food. His grandma seemed to have an eye on the side of her head; although she rarely stopped looking at and talking with her friend, she constantly reached over to subdue the boy.

Finally, she gave him the warning: "We're leaving soon, so you need to get ready." Get ready? This boy had been blocked in this booth for way too long already. Oh, he was definitely ready. The problem was, grandma wasn't. The boy and his grandma didn't have the same interpretation of leaving soon. So he stepped it up a notch. He talked incessantly of what he was going to do when he got to grandma's house. And his voice got louder and louder. He leaned toward her and spoke directly into her ear and repeated "Graaandmaaaaa!"

When have you walked in place or bounced up and down in impatience? When have you repeated the same thing over and over, believing more words or louder speech would get someone's attention? How does this boy's behavior remind you of your prayer life?

After several minutes of the boy's constant and increasingly louder demands for his grandma's attention, the grandma peeled her eyes away from her friend, looked her grandson in the eye (frankly, I think he was startled to find her looking directly at him), and firmly said, "We're leaving now."

The boy raised his hands high above his head and yelled, "Yeah, I wwiiiiinnnnnn!"

I wonder how many times God has given me what I wanted simply based on my persistence. Was it his will anyway? Perhaps. His timing? Likely not or he would have chosen another time to answer and not rewarded my incessant demands and childish behavior.

When do you raise your hands high above your head and yell, "Yeah, I wwiiiinnnnn!"? When you get your way...or when God gets his?

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. - 1 Corinthians 9: 25-26 (NLT)