A Pocket Full of Posies

"Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel."  - G.K. Chesterton 

Perched five feet above a solid cement floor, my infant son sat facing outward, supported by my arms.  He swung his legs merrily, taking in his surroundings as he often does, until he decided at once that he wanted to get down.  He began to try to scoot forward to free himself of the hold I had on him.  With each failed attempt he would try again, harder and harder each time.  Finally he got frustrated with me and began to fuss and whimper.  He was angry with me for not allowing him to jump a distance greater than two times his height (him who can not even stand up, let along jump!).  He was clearly far too young to understand that his father was not acting to frustrate him, but to keep him from serious harm.  He simply wanted what he wanted.

But what lessons children teach us!  How often is it the same with us?  We simply want what we want.  We may try over and over and over for the same thing, and our Heavenly Father may restrain us over and over and over to keep us from harm.  And though we ought to be thankful for this, instead we often act in frustration.  In defiance, we may try again, only to find ourselves restrained one more time.  Like an infant, we understand so little compared to our God.  Sometimes the things we see as burdens were given to us by God to make us into the people we would be in the future.  Sometimes we want to go one direction in life, and God points us in another.  And sometimes we just want to jump out of the loving arms of God onto a cement floor where we would surely break our heads.  Strange as it may be at times to our small minds, we ought to be thankful that God does not give us everything we want.  We know little of what we truly need, but we can rest in the knowledge that we have a Father in Heaven who does.

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
- G.K. Chesterton