love renewed

Today, in My Utmost for His Highest- written by Oswald Chambers in the early 1900's, I was reading about shallow things.  You know, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, housework, homework, driving....  He said, "Even oceans (the deep) have shores (the shallow).


I can't help but think about my daughter.  She doesn't think before she talks.  It just all comes out.  I'm not saying that she bad-mouths people.  She just talks non-stop about everything and it's a long, run-on sentence.  I thought maybe she'd grow out of it, but she's 12 now and I'm beginning to think that this is going to stick around for a long while.


I would get so frustrated with her because I want to have conversations that are deep and meaningful while she wants to talk about the shapes of the clouds or how she's going to protect our animals from coyotes or other "off the top of her head" conversation.  I began to tune her out.  Now all I do is say "uh-huh" and keep doing what I'm doing and not listening at all.  That's just how it's progressed.


Today's devotional really hit me between the eyes because it's saying: 
"Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the profound. It is not your devotion to God that makes you refuse to be shallow, but your wish to impress other people with the fact that you are not shallow, which is a sure sign that you are a spiritual prig. Be careful of the production of contempt in yourself, it always comes along this line, and causes you to go about as a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than you are. Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a Baby."   


Ouch.  I asked God why I long for this "deepness".  He showed me when I was younger, before I was a teenager, I desired to be deeper because I thought my dad was deep and that the only way I'd get his attention was to be deep too.   I wanted to be proud of my wisdom.  And thus I have become.  BUT, I have contempt for others who are shallow.  And yet God became a baby.  He took the steps to come to the shallow and show them the profound, yet simple truth.  LOVE.  The real definition of LOVE.  not lust (which gratifies self).


I have given God that wound.  I want to be open to my shallow yet simple daughter.  I know there are others out there just like her.  I don't want to have contempt for people who won't (or rather can't) reach to my level.  It's totally ok.  BECAUSE  God told me that everyone has a different relationship with him.  We are not all the same.  Just like in a bouquet of flowers, you have the greenery, baby's breath, sunflowers and the lillies-just to name a few.  We are all part of a bouquet.  (I hope we smell delightful!)