Adoration

Sometimes I go through my day and just assume that the boys don’t listen to a thing I say, because let’s face it: they certainly don’t hear any of my instructions.  Nevertheless, we’ve started doing “High/Low” at dinner, and the other night while I was trying to think of a low, Eli chimed you.  “Your low was that you have to go to work and you can’t stay with us.”  I guess I’ve been saying that a little too much, huh?  Eli is a noticer; he has been studying me.

Something happens in my heart when my kids notice these little details -  when Eli decides that Cast Your Cares needs to be Mommy’s new song, when Caleb tells me that the waffles I made were the BEST part of his day, when they just want to touch me, even if that means holding onto my ankle and dragging behind me while I try to make dinner.  They soften my heart.  Suddenly it isn’t just about what they want from me.  I’m not just their servant.  They love me.  They want me.  They have watched me and they know me, and usually that’s the key to the pantry or whatever it is they are hoping to get.  Their adoration moves mountains in my own heart.

I’ve been struggling with this concept of adoration, and how to really do it.  Thanks to years in AWANA, I have a fairly good command of what scripture says.  I know God on an intellectual level, but I’ve never focused on moving that knowledge to my heart.  For example, I know that God promises to answer our prayer, but my heart doesn’t really believe that.  It expects that I will be the exception…that what I ask will simply not be part of God’s plan.  And so I read “Ask, and it will be given to you”, and my heart whispers, well, maybe not you.  You still have these problem areas in your life.  And you probably don’t want the same things God does, so it will probably not be given to you.  And then when I ask and nothing happens, my image of God takes that circumstance and turns it into my new reality.  My new version of God.

In the last few days, as my heart breaks and I search for peace, I’ve been turning back to the book I read while I was nursing Violet in those early days: Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet by Sara Hagerty. This is her description of adoration: “Adoration makes walking with God more than just reacting to a series of externals.  Adoration calls the circumstances, no matter how high or low, into proper submission in our hearts.  Adoration roots us in a reality that no amount of pain and no amount of blessing can shake.” (97)

This summer I wrote twenty-five Advent Calendar entries for my church, and as I reflect on the verses and stories God led me to use, I realize He was giving me a road map for adoration.  He was directly addressing the areas in which my own faith struggles.  And so, I have spent some to unearthing my hurts and looking for the hidden beliefs they reveal.  For example, I really do not expect God to do the impossible.  Its, well, impossible.  And yet, I found at least three Bible verse that tell me nothing is impossible with God.  So when my heart screams at the impossibility of our situation, I lean into those verses instead.  My sincere prayer is that God will begin to transform my view of him.

One of my great hurts right now is the fear that God will not give me good gifts; that he’ll only give me more pain.  And yet, there’s Luke 11:9-13.  Keep on asking.  He who asks will receive.  Your father knows how to give you good gifts.  I have the verse copied on a notecard, hanging next to my desk.  When my grieving heart moves to pray because I don’t know what else to do, I speak that verse to the voice that says, “why bother?”  I adore God for answering my prayers and giving me good gifts, and I pray that He will move both my heart and his.