Sometimes life lessons you think you are teaching your kids are really for you. Our son, who is so easy and wonderful, has been trying our patience the last couple of weeks. He is five now and seems to have hit the paranoid stage. He keeps getting out of the bed to check and see what we are doing....at all hours of the night! He is still awake when we come to bed, comes in our room at 3am, is awake when I leave for work at 6am... does this kid sleep? Anyway, he has been disobeying us by continually getting up. The first week, we took privileges of tv and games away, the second week he got spanked by me, the third week, he got his first ever daddy spanking. We believe that is the last resort, however, it didn't work. He still got up. Sooooo I will tell you what has made him stay in bed the last 2 nights as long as nobody calls social services! He kept saying he was scared, that's why he was getting up. Clearly, he was not and it was an excuse. So I told him since he was scared inside the house, he could sleep outside where he wasn't scared. It worked! He is totally freaked that I will drag his pillow and blanket out there.

After the night Trey spanked James, Trey was analyzing the problem when God spoke to him. Maybe this lesson is for him....to quit being paranoid and just relax and wait for answers. Stay where He has put us and stop worrying God so much with our doubt. I have been doing this Old Testament study and today I was reading about when the Israelites got impatient, after being freed from Egypt, waiting for Moses to return from the mountain where he was meeting with God. How quickly they forgot all the amazing works God had done for them when they didn't enter the promised land immediately. So much so that they built a golden calf as an idol! And wanted to go back to Egypt where they were slaves! I read this and think to myself, "stupid!"...but how many times have I done this? Questioned God while waiting for an answer or a fulfillment to a promise? Waiting is the devil's playground. In times like these, we get frustrated and impatient and forget to look back on all the "God-stones" (my word for milestones) that lead us to this place....doors only He could have opened to get you on your purpose path. It's so difficult when you have been given the dream and the vision but you aren't there yet. Instead of questioning God, relax and know He remembers His promise and knows the right time. I don't want to go back to Egypt, maybe I knew what eveyday would look like, but I wasn't free because I wasn't in Him, doing my purpose. One thing is for sure, I know He is the same God today and He may prolong my entrance to the fulfilment if I doubt and forget His majesty. I have personally done a soul check and made sure there are no golden calfs in this heart.....I vow to continue to wait on Him, even if its in the wilderness that I don't understand.