On God and Skating

Today I took my kids to an indoor skating rink, strapped the skates on their little feet and sent them out onto the huge, hard floor filled with fast, flailing kids-on-wheels. It was a big day for me. For one thing, my own personal memories of 'hokey-pokey', 'backwards-skate', and the dreaded 'couple-skate' came rushing back. But mainly I was just so doggone proud of my little kids, out there in this new rolley world, trying to be 'big', clinging to the outer rails. They would fall, of course. They would really struggle at first trying to get up and sometimes I really wanted to help them but I knew they had to learn to get up by themselves. And what excited me the most was that they never gave up! I braced for tears of frustration, but they just kept struggling to get back on their feet until it became easy for them to do. And then I got whacked upside the head with one of those ever so common lightbulb moments that happen when I watch my children:

Maybe, just maybe, God isn't so concerned with the fact that I fall. Maybe He kind of even expects it (or at least it's not a shock). Maybe He is really proud of me for learning how to get up again (come back to Him) after I fall. Maybe that's what gets Him really excited, not my perfect performance, gliding through life.

One time Noah was skating across the middle of the rink, and doing quite well, when he fell pretty badly just before he got to the other side. The look on his face said a thousand words. I could tell that not only was he really frustrated with himself for "failing", but he looked to me to see if I was dissapointed in him, too. As if somehow He failed me. It was in that moment that I realized just how much legalistic church-induced guilt I still have polluting my relationship with my Father. I'm always doing that to God, ya know? I'll sin, and then immediately think that God is looking at me with a dissapproving glare (kind of like those preachers do). I'll brace myself for His rejection. I failed Him, again. But...

maybe God isn't dissappointed that I fell. Maybe He would never reject me. Maybe He's just watching to see what I do after the fall...