What are you?! Two?!

Being a mom of toddlers, I am fully familiar with tantrums. Full on “kicking, flailing, sticking-your-tongue-out, hitting the air” tantrums.

Let me tell you, this week….Oh boy….  I want to throw a tantrum. Yep. Me. And maybe even a tantrum that would put my kids’ episodes to shame.

But it’s not even my kids' tantrums that are making me feel like this. It’s…my own flesh.

Do you ever feel like you know what needs to be done, or how you should act in situations, but inside there is a full-out 2 or 3 year old child screaming “But I don’t want to!!!!”?

In the last couple weeks, I don’t want to be the first one to be nice, I want someone to love me while I’m yelling…. I don’t want to be thankful for what I have, I want more…. I don’t want to give more of myself, I just want to sail away on a 15 day cruise….I don’t want to forgive the wrong, I want them to know how much they hurt me…

Now, I realize, especially now that it’s written for all to see (or at the very least for my Dad to see) that this is quite ugly. And yet the toddler in me still yells “I don’t care. I’m tired. I’m having feelings. And I don’t want to!”

So – how appropriate that, among other things the Lord has been using to call out my toddler-like behavior, EM Bounds would write in this chapter:

“Praying is spiritual work; and human nature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants to sail to heaven under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer is humbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory, and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them.”

I know I need to pray. But boy is my flesh and my pride in the way. Part of me thinks that I can get by without prayer. Part of me knows what the Lord might call me to or put His finger on if I truly pray in a REAL way. A way “which is born of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the Holy Ghost.” Not just a habitual way, but praying in a manner that shows I don’t take it lightly. Thus, for me lately, it has been easier not to pray.

And maybe even worse, as EM Bounds suggests, I’ve come to a point of praying a little. You know, the prayers at dinner. The prayers before bed. The quick prayers for people to feel better. “Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.” Oof.

I suppose this summary is more of a confession. Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m a habitual, little prayer. It’s a reality check. A litmus test of where I’m at with prayer. I don’t have much of a solution at the moment. Everything I want to write as a conclusion to this write-up, and what I wish could be a solution permanently to this issue in my prayer life, doesn’t seem to really give any direction or answer to my dilemma. But I do hold onto hope, while daily taking “up my cross and following,” through this verse: Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

Spending the time in oneness prayer and living from that place will allow me to focus on my new and true identity.  It is Christ who lives in me. Christ who loved me. Christ who GAVE Himself UP for ME. And if He gave Himself for me in such a way, I can love Him back by dying to my flesh.

This true identity of who I am since Christ lives in me just might keep my own toddler tantrums at bay.