A couple weeks ago, our family got out of the house, packed up the baby paraphernalia into the minivan, and drove down to Fiddler’s Pond. It doesn’t have any fiddlers there that I’ve seen, but it does have a nice 1.5 mile trail looping around the pond, or maybe the lake, I don’t know. It’s a question that Janice and I frequently discuss while we walk around said pond or lake. Yea, it’s a boring conversation but it’s better than discussing the quality, texture, and frequency of Adi’s latest bowel movement. Oh, the things we talk about as parents!

Sometimes kids teach us things. I know it’s supposed to be the other way around but my kid is just extra smart.

Adi gets excited about going on stroller rides. “Stew-ride” she exclaims excitedly as I try to extract the folded mess of a scooter out of the back of the van. “Stew-ride!”

We load up the tray of her stroller with a few Sara Boyton books, veggie straws, animal crackers, and a sippy cup and start the trek around the lake or pond. Adi starts off happy and expectant.

Halfway around she thinks Daddy has no idea what he’s doing. “Hold you” she says. “Hold you” actually means “Hold me” but close enough, she gets her point across. She’s tired of riding already! She wants out! She wants to swing on the swings and since we’re still walking and not swinging, she assumes this means we’ll never get to swinging. If only she could get out of the stroller and run to the swings. Her problem would be solved!

What she doesn’t know is that there’s a pond or lake in between here and the swing sets and that the fastest way to get there is for her to just sit a little longer in the stroller. She’ll never get there on her own since she’ll get lost in the weeds while chasing butterflies and sorting stones into different piles on the trail. I know that. She doesn’t.

It’s the same way we deal with God. We’re in Gods stroller and he’s taking us somewhere. We’re so happy that God has called us to do something specific but halfway around the pond we get tired of the stroller. It’s so constrictive. It’s not going fast enough. We want out. And God will get us out sometimes if we complain loud enough but it’ll go better for us if we learn to sit in that stroller and trust that the guy pushing it knows what he is doing.