Fin or Feet

I live on a lake so my granddaughters have been spent a lot of summers as mermaids. The youngest was here Sunday and Monday this week and is the one who would likely sleep in the water, if allowed. For a while she was a dolphin and would follow a command and be rewarded with a chunk of watermelon. But, mostly, she was a mermaid. Her imagination was full of fantasy as she explained that sometimes she had fins and other times, like when doing a hand stand in the water, her tail would morph to appear that she had feet so that people wouldn't know she was truly a mermaid. It is so fun to watch her play, hour after hour, sometimes finding her feet and other times sporting her fins. 

All this fantasy brought me back to Chris's sermon on Sunday... fake FAITH. It is quite normal for an 8 year old child to pretend to be something they are not, but when we do it as adults, it isn't beneficial or attractive. And nobody sees it more than those who live under our roof. I assume that most of you who read this blog consider yourselves followers of Christ. Some days you follow Him more closely than others. Some days your faith is strong and your fear is small. Other days... not so much. 

During these perilous times of the COVID pandemic, where do YOU stand? It is the perfect time to exhibit your faith in God to your kids and teach them that bad experiences do not equal bad God. He is not asleep to what is happening on planet earth. He is fully aware and He is the CREATOR and is always creating good from what appears to be evil, in our eyes. 

I would like to challenge all who read this to allow God to do His work in your heart, strengthening it through the struggles and make your faith real. 

...Too much togetherness has caused relationships to be strained so make the faith you profess real by asking God to strengthen the bonds of your  marriage and morph those fins of fake faith into feet ready to go the extra mile as love demands.

...So much fear of the unknown has caused high anxiety which lowers our tolerance for just about everything and our patience ebbs away like a mermaid in the mist, never to be seen again. It doesn't have to be so. Call on the God who made you to reflect His love and let the tail of fake faith go and find the feet you need to stand up to the evil sea monster. Reclaim the loving kindness that marks you as a follower to your kids. 

...Perhaps your income has not been impacted, but people all around you are struggling to pay their rent or feed their family due to the pandemic. Are you using the strength of the mermaids tail to swim off into the sunset, or showing your kids what true compassion looks like and putting real feet to your faith, reaching out in love and making sacrifices in order to help others?

Don't be fake in your faith. Your kids will see that a mile away and, well, if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for them. If you want them to have a faith that is real and follow Jesus all the way to heaven, be real. Act out the faith you profess and when you mess up and fall short, humble yourself before them and confess that you have been less than God intended. Admit that you have been trying to do life on your own and that isn't how you want to live. It's really okay to tell them that we are all on a journey. We are discovering the power of God daily and learning that we have a choice to use His strength or our own. Sometimes we don't get it right. Wouldn't you rather your kids know that you messed up than end up failing because they have perceived your failures to be the right path for them?