He Just Wants to Spend Time With You!

Last night, while I was breaking bread and eating soup at Panera's with a dear friend, she shared the truth with me that God desires relationship with me over the trivial activities that I do for Him.

As we looked out the window and watched the snow falling to the ground, we laughed at the comparison of ourselves to little ants, busily hurrying and scurrying around DOING 'great' things for our God. As if God is actually so relieved when He sees what we do--knowing that He would never be able to accomplish these things without our help. How absurd!

The all-powerful, mighty God needs nothing of our works for Him, He only desires relationship with us.

The cool thing about it is that He chooses to allow us to help Him where He is already working.

Kind of like when my kids were toddlers and I let them pull up the kitchen chairs around the mixer as I made peanut butter cookies. Could I have made the cookies faster without them? Yes. Would it have been a more peaceful activity doing it by myself? Most definately. Could I have made those cookies with less chance of the batch being botched up?

Oh, that reminds me of the time when all three kids had their chairs pulled around the mixer. I had given each child their turn in pouring in an ingredient. It was one of those hallmark moments that my kids would someday thank me for in a Mother's Day Card.

Then--my almost 2 year old youngest daughter opened up the junk drawer--quicker than I could realize what she was doing, she proceeded to place 3 Christmas tree lightbulbs into the batter as the beaters were agitating quickly.

Our cookies quickly turned into a science experiment--what happens when you put 2 green and 1 red bulb into peanut butter dough while mixing? We still laugh about that now.

I didn't let the kids help me make cookies because I needed their help--I let them help me because it was something we could do together. I cared about spending time with them--and I valued that over getting the cookies done.

(I wish I got that message then--during the time I was throwing the dough with the shards of glass away--all while my son was asking if we couldn't just pick out the pieces and it would be all good.) I was ticked--and exasperated like I was so often as a young mom staying home with kids all day.

But God, on the other hand, is the perfect parent. He really just allows us to help Him--even if we mess things up a bit--all for the reason that He values a relationship with Him. That is so cool.