This morning, as I was cooking breakfast, Spencer came over and asked me where one of his toys was. I told him to look in the stuff scattered around the living room because I had just seen it there last night. He looked for a moment, didn’t find it, and went back to watching his fire fighter video on TV. A little later, he asked me again, and I told him the same thing. Again, he went back to watching the show.
After I was done cooking, I was momentarily tempted to look through the toys myself and find it for him, but I didn’t. Although it would have been very easy to do and would have made him happy, I stopped myself because I decided that I wasn’t going to care more about finding the toy for Spencer than he cared about it himself. If he’s only committed enough to ask me to look for it, but not enough to do so himself, I’m not going to.
He doesn’t realize it yet, but such vain requests dishonor me by valuing my time and effort less than his own, as though the father should be subject to the child’s fleeting whims. I wonder if God ever feels this way.
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