My three older kids are all at the age where they can get around pretty easily without help. Ellie, I rarely offer help to, because she rarely needs it. Kenny and Lindsey, though, need help more often—or at least that’s the way it looks to me.
Apparently, I’m sadly mistaken.
Help them down out of the van? No way. They can get down themselves, thank you very much. Offer to help them put on their shoes? What could I have been thinking? Put the toothpaste on the toothbrush myself instead of letting them do it? You should hear the affronted wailing.
Every now and then, however, even they acknowledge that they need help. When they are climbing into or out of the tub, I usually grip their arm firmly to help steady them, because you know how it goes when wet kid steps on wet floor. This kind of touch, they don’t mind.
But the same touch, given for a different reason, causes screaming and crying.
I’m talking about when, for disciplinary purposes, I have to firmly grasp their arm to get their attention, or to lead them away from something—or toward a punishment. In these instances, the minute I grasp their arm, they either tense up and try to twist away, or they start crying with the wails of someone who knows they’ve just lost a battle.
So what’s the difference?
Motive.
Both times, it’s the same touch—a firm grip on their arm. Their reaction to my touch all depends on the motive they think I have.
If they think I am trying to help them, they welcome my touch and not only cooperate with it but rely on it to achieve their goal. If they think I’m doing or about to do something they don’t like, they fight it.
Don’t we do the same thing to God?
If we think he is trying to help us—trying to do something we appreciate—we welcome his involvement in our lives. If we think he is trying to impose consequences or force us to do something we don’t want to do, we fight him.
On the one hand, we perceive his motive as positive toward us—offering us something we appreciate. On the other hand, we perceive his motive as negative—doing something bad to us.
What we need to realize is the same thing my children need to realize: in both cases, the motive is actually the same, and in both cases, it is for our benefit.
What? How can we say that his motive is equally loving toward us when he brings us an unexpected financial windfall and when he brings consequences for our sin?
Here’s how: God always acts in love toward us. Sometimes, he chooses to give us pleasant gifts out of his love for us and for his glory. Sometimes, his love requires him to discipline us in order to help mold us into the likeness of his son, an eminently loving thing to do.
No matter the specifics of how God is involving himself in your life, you can be sure that his motive toward you is love. He doesn’t sometimes grasp your arm to help you and sometimes to capriciously harm you. No, whenever he touches you, it is always with your greatest good and his greatest glory—two sides of the same coin—in mind.
It’s not likely that if Kenny sinned, and I had to grab his arm, Kenny would think, “Mom is only doing this for my good. I won’t cry or scream, because I trust Mom enough to know that even now, her response is going to be in my best interests.”
But dear mommy friend, do you know something? We can respond to God that way. We can choose to trust, knowing in our head and in our heart that God loves us profoundly and acts only out of love.
Always? Yes, always, dear friend. Because God is love. It’s not within his character to ever act in an unloving manner toward those he loves.
So even when you don’t understand what he’s doing…when you don’t know why he’s doing it…when you can’t see past the tears, or when you’re afraid…you can trust his heart toward you.
He loves you.
Always.
Psalm 117:2—For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.