For the first five years of my life I was what one would call a “model child.” I was obedient, compliant, quiet, and well-mannered. Then, at age six, something snapped, and I made a deliberate decision to take a walk on the wild side and rebel against parental authority. Although six decades have passed since that fateful day, I remember every detail as if it were yesterday.
Although it was early on a Saturday morning, I had already eaten my breakfast and was lying fully clothed on my bed. The small room that served as a bedroom for my brother, sister, and me lay directly next to the kitchen and did not even have a door for privacy. While this arrangement sometimes presented a problem, it also allowed us to hear everything that was going on in the tiny kitchen and living room.
On this particular day I was listening to the sounds of my mother clanking dishes in the kitchen and waiting for the call that I knew was sure to come at any moment, “Joyce, come here.” Whenever that call came, I had always responded quickly and joined my mother at the sink to dry the dishes that she had washed. On this day, however, I had made up my mind ahead of time that when she called, I would refuse to obey.
When I heard her call my name, I responded, “I don’t want to dry the dishes!”
“Joyce, come here.”
“I don’t want to dry the dishes!” I yelled louder.
We continued this way for quite some time with my mother calling for me to join her in the kitchen and me responding in ever louder tones, “I DON’T WANT TO DRY THE DISHES!”
After a while the clanking of dishes ceased, and I felt that it would be safe to enter the kitchen. Since rebellion was new to me, I felt a little guilty, yet oddly exhilarated by my refusal to comply with my mother’s instructions. I smiled sweetly as I turned the corner into the kitchen and said to my mother, “I just didn’t want to dry the dishes.”
She did not smile in return. She just looked at me and said, “I wasn’t calling you to dry the dishes. I made a lemon pie, and I thought that you would want to stir the filling.”
I was crestfallen! My favorite thing to do in the whole world was to stir the lemon filling as it bubbled on the stove, and my mother knew it. She had saved that part of the pie making for me to enjoy, but through my disobedience, I had lost the opportunity.
Then Mother said something to me that I have never forgotten, “When I call you, it doesn’t always mean that I have something unpleasant for you to do. Sometimes I have something special for you, but you will never know unless you come when I call.”
Whenever I remember my day of rebellion, I think about the times when God calls us to do something that we assume will be unpleasant, or difficult, or unrewarding, and we respond by crying out from a distance, “I don’t want to!”
By refusing to respond to His call, we, no doubt, escape some unpleasant tasks, but we also escape the wonderful rewards that He has reserved for us. Serving Jesus Christ is not always easy, and we sometimes feel that we are tired of drying the dishes while our siblings are allowed to play. But, if we are willing to respond to His call every time we hear His voice, we will discover that sometimes He has prepared something special for us just because He knew that it would bring us joy. The catch is: You have to respond to every call, because you never know when there is a pot of bubbling lemon pie filling on the stove.
For books by Joyce visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.com
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