Although I live in the middle of the city, I have to admit that I am still a country girl deep in my heart. I love everything about the country, except for the allergies, and I'll even deal with them the best that I can if it means that I can enjoy a picnic, a horseback ride, or a long hike through the woods.
But the fact is that we chose our home here for many reasons, and some of the things that I enjoy, I simply won't be able to do here. One of those things will be having a garden.
Despite not having much sun in the right areas in our yard, I've tried to grow the occasional tomato plant, but it has been futile. The only things that I have managed to grow in my backyard are blackberries and an array of flowers that may actually be weeds.
In the last 6 years, I've learned my limits and accepted that some things I wish that I could make work, just aren't worth the failure.
My son, who is much like me in many ways, may have a hard lesson to learn. If he sets his mind to do something, he is insistent on trying.
Case in point: Simon wants to grow peanuts. So, while we were repairing our fence in the front yard, he brought out a jar of peanuts from the kitchen and a small garden fork. Before we could explain that those were not the kind of peanuts that you could plant, he dug a hole and filled it up with peanuts!
He probably has a better chance of being a lawyer when he grows up rather than a farmer because no matter what we said, he was convinced that planting dry-roasted peanuts was right despite all evidence.
You know, one of the worst things that we can be sometimes is insistent. For the Christian, one who follows the will of God, not everything that we want in life, and not every direction that we want to go is going to be what God wants for us.
That relationship that you feel like you can't live without; that job that you spend so much time pouring yourself into; those choices that you've dwelt on and agonized over, become a battle between foolish insistence and God's perfect will.
It is usually at this point where we dig in our heels, push the throttle forward and go headlong into a certain failure, and it's all because we want what we want.
Scripture tells us that "There is a way that appears right to man, but in the end, it leads to death." (Proverbs 14:12) And, "The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice." (Proverbs 12:15) Oh how true that is!
Our insistence upon our desires will only push us farther down the path of failure, and ever more out of the will of God. But, to seek the will of God and His direction, to seek wise counsel and trust in the promise of God to be able to do "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think," is where our insistence becomes surrender, and our surrender becomes our victory. (Ephesians 3:20)
