Turning the Page on Distraction
Anybody else getting emotionally abused by their kids during COVID 19 social distancing?
Our first week at home with the kids was pure mayhem. If you don’t have a plan for them, they will have a plan for you… and their plan, is chaos. As it turns out, Ellie prefers chaos. (Mostly, because it allows her an unlimited supply of kiddy crack: a.k.a.. Disney +.)
Last week, before I chose discipline over mayhem, I allowed my kids unlimited fun at their discretion. But when “fun” doesn’t include fruitful and intentional activity, it quickly turns sour.
Ellie’s two pals indiscipline and defiance woke up from their sleep when the mindless distraction of her iPad were forcibly removed. Her show of manipulation was my own wake up call to end that chaotic chapter of our quarantine by turning the page to a lasting joy, built through discipline and intentionality.
Our Heavenly Father has turned the page on all of us too. Our distractions have been forcibly removed and our sleeping sins have woken up and shown themselves. (Oh hello my arch nemesis laziness… we meet again.) We can choose to let our sleeping sins wake and rule or we can fill our empty time practicing the discipline and intentionality it takes to seek God daily. I’m convinced that seeking our Father instead of finding new unfruitful activities to fill our freed time, will lead us to finding lives more joyful than our pre-pandemic selves could have imagined.
Hebrews 12:4-11 - Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.