“Mama, can I help you fill the muffin tray?” he asked me while rubbing the sleepies from his eyes. Everything within me wanted to say no. Why? Because I know when the children help me on a task, the task often takes 10 times longer to do and the clean up is even worse. I found myself having this inward battle. ‘Just say yes’ I said to myself in my head but saying it seemed easier said than done. I wanted control. I wanted what I wanted and didn’t want anyone to disrupt that. The greed in my heart told me that I should just say no and do it myself.

The other day I was talking to a friend about how hard it is for me to let go of not only the big things but also the little things. That I want to control everything from what shoes my children wear to what is the desires of their heart. I want to control it all. I will see them drinking out of a water bottle strangely and control how they are drinking. I will hear them making this weird noise with their mouth and control how they make the noise. I will see how they are loading the dishwasher and control where they put each dish because the way they are loading it isn’t the way that I load it. I will hear them having a disagreement with their sibling and control the outcome of the conversation instead of listening to what they have to say. I will control the way they do all of these certain tasks yet feel disappointed and frustrated when they don’t ask what they can do to help. Who would want to help someone when they know that whatever they are doing is going to be told they aren’t doing it right? When they know that what they do will probably be deemed wrong and done over. I can see all of the wrongs in their life but don’t stop to look at all of the wrongs in my own heart.

We make life about us. We complain when it doesn’t go our way. We grumble when more is required of us. We are angry when someone disrupts up. We hold a grudge when sin is pointed out to us. We want more even though we have plenty. We are never truly content with what we have and what we have been given. We have this constant drive to do what pleases us and give no regard to what The Lord says or desires for us. We have created this self centered world that is an idol of self and doing what pleases us. Even as I type this, one of the children is wanting my attention and I find myself annoyed that they don’t see that I am typing. It’s so hard to take the focus off of myself and not make life about me. If I make life about me, then I am just raising another generation of self centered people who don’t have any regard to others and realizing that if we want true change, we have to get to the heart of self. The idol of self. When we put ourself before The Lord, then life becomes about us and not about who we were created to be and what we were created to worship.

“Sure,” I told him. I had to let go of the control of wanting my morning to go the way I thought it should go. Was there more of a mess? Yes. Did the task take longer? It did but the letting go of what I wanted was harder than the clean up of the mess that was made.

Lord, replace the idol of self with the desire to focus on You in all things. Break me of my selfishness and replace it with the want and my need for a Savior.