Far Too Easily Pleased

I am glad that God saw fit to use earthly analogies to describe our own relationship with Him. How else would we begin to comprehend the vastness of the depth of His love for us? While these analogies are superficial at best because they use finite objects to convey an infinite love, they are helpful nonetheless. I remember, as a newlywed, reading passages that compare us to the bride of Christ and being overwhelmed because I understood them in a whole new way. Now, I am a parent, and those passages that refer to us being children of God or to God being our Father have a far greater impact than they did before I was a mom.

Just last night, I saw myself in Jonah. It was near his bedtime, and I was in the kitchen holding him and trying to prepare his bottle. I got his empty bottle down from the cupboard and let him hold it while I retrieved the formula from another cupboard. Realizing that I could not hold Jonah and pour the formula into the bottle at the same time without making a terrible mess, I set Jonah (still holding his bottle) on his Daddy's lap. Chaos ensued as I took his empty bottle away from him only so that I could fill it up with his milk. As I listened to the screaming of my dear little child, God used that moment to teach me a lesson about myself. I no longer heard Jonah's cries so much as I saw what God must see in His own children from time to time. Sometimes He removes something of no or little value from our lives (though we may quite enjoy it) for the purpose of giving us something needful in its place. I was able to have compassion on my son because, after all, don't I act the same way sometimes?

It reminded me of the words of C.S. Lewis:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.