Fighting God!

 Recently we went away camping in our van, and one of the biggest challenges I find when I am away is sleep! Not particularly my sleep, I’m an early bird, so my favourite time of day when camping is having a large coffee in the stillness before the campsite comes alive. It’s not the sleep of my husband that is the challenge, his horrendously loud snoring always shows how good he sleeps, (thank the Lord for ear plugs!) It’s the sleep of our little girl that poses the biggest challenge to our peace.

You see, our little girl has a habit of fighting sleep and always has. She has a suitcase full of strategies to ensure she doesn’t sleep. She may sing to keep herself awake, poke herself in the eye, shake herself if she feels she is drifting off and she will even try to physically fight me if I try to hold her! It can be terribly frustrating knowing that sleep is the best thing for her, that the consequence of staying up late will not be good for her, or any of us, and that what she will gain by sleep is far better than what she might miss out on by staying awake! 

She has always fought the need to sleep, but I think while she is on holiday, she doesn’t want to miss a moment! Now I know I am certainly not alone in this, but one thing that makes it a little more challenging is that due to her special needs, she doesn’t respond or learn in the way other children do. Traditional discipline, reminders, reasoning or even the threat of no more holidays do not make the slightest bit of difference and the lack of language can add to the frustration. 

There have been times on my holiday where I have acted less than gracefully while trying to get her to sleep, and one evening, after tag teaming with my husband and walking the dog in a temper, God began revealing to me how I can be just like my daughter with him. 

You see there are often times in my life when I fight God.I resist the things that God points out in my life that I need to change, I dispute his calling on my life, or try to prevent him from softening my rough edges. I do everything I can to fight God and use many of the same tactics including distractions, resistance, wilfulness and out and out rebellion. 

I was reminded of the story of one of the biblical characters who resisted God the most, Jonah. He was a man that not only resisted God but actually ran away from him. He also argued with God and got pretty dramatic and angry, demanding death! However the beautiful thing about it all is that God is gracious and sweet in the way he deals with him. 

As I began to calm down as looking out across the sea and walking the dogs, God also gently reminded me that just as I know what is best for Faith in terms of sleeping, even though she doesn’t understand, so too does God when it comes to my own life. Sometimes the things God does, seems to make no sense to me, sometimes things that seem to stop me in my tracks, change my direction or discipline me are actually God doing what is best for me. Isaiah 55:8-9 says:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”

That evening I was reminded of an important truth of God, and now every time my daughter fights sleep, (which lets face it is still every night!) I am reminded that God knows better than I and that I am called to be obedient to him. As 2 John 1:6 says 

‘And this is Love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.’