Highlighters

While growing up, my girls were known for their impressive vocabularies. They started speaking in full sentences at about nine months old. Most of the time, the sentence was, “I don’t like that.” But it was a full sentence none the less. Joy (12) and Alexia (9), though very sweet girls, have had their share of contrary moments. These moments, coupled with their premature speaking abilities, have led to quite a few comical conversations. And I’ve made my fair share of apologies for something said from a “toddler” perspective (out of the mouth of babes, right?).

One such moment, I recall, occurred while Alexia (then 2 years old) was at our school. She picked up a highlighter, excitedly turned to one of our high school students (18 years old), and said “I got a marker!” Instead of just acknowledging the very enthusiastic two year old, our high school student said, “It’s a highlighter.” To which, Alexia promptly rebutted, "It’s a MARKER!” This volley of disagreement continued for several turns until my chunky cheeked little two year old stopped and said, "I don’t even know why you’re still talking!” She then turned her back and walked out the door.

Now this was just one of the cute and funny moments from my life as a mom, but let’s look at it in terms of our Christian walk. As babes in Christ (and sometimes older), we turn to the Lord with something new and exciting or something we are adamant about, and we’re sure He is going to be just as excited about it as we are; we’re confident that he’s going to lock arms with us and march on toward our goal. But like Peter, when he rebuked the Lord in Luke 16:21-23, we don’t always get the response that we expect. I’m sure Peter never would have thought that Jesus would call Him Satan for saying that He wouldn’t allow Jesus to be killed. But He did. Peter was so adamant about his feelings that he wasn’t listening to what the Lord was saying.

Sometimes the Lord has to show us our error. Unfortunately, and maybe more times than we care to admit, we try to argue our point with Him. We are sure that we’re right, so we don’t accept His guidance. Have you ever gotten to the point where you say to God, “I don’t even know why you’re still talking?”  Sounds ridiculous, right? Why would anyone in their right mind say something like that to the Creator of the universe? But in essence, aren’t we saying that very thing every time we ignore the path He’s set for our lives? Let’s heed a little warning from Jonah’s experience. He thought he knew better than God, and he ended up with three days in the belly of a whale to rethink the path that God had set for him. So the next time God says, “It’s a highlighter!” let’s just put the cap back on and pick up His Word so we can use IT to “highlight” our path. It’s so much easier… and I can’t stand the smell of fish anyway.

By: Erin Jasper