A few weeks ago we began to bring our older daughter into worship with us before she attends her lesson. It wasn’t her first rodeo when it comes to worship. She’s gone with us countless times before but this time my heart noticed something that it hadn’t before.
At one point she came up to me smiling, wanting me to twirl her. She giggled freely as I spun her. Her laugh caused me to giggle and in that moment I realized just how precious our laughter is to our Father. I realized how her childlike joy and dance was something I had lost over the years. Something that had to be found again in the secret place with my Father.
I prayed over her little heart that she would keep that freedom and not have to find it again as she got older. There are so many sermons and wisdom that has been poured out in regards to childlike faith. In fact I’ll dive into that in a few more blog posts but right now I want to focus on one specific aspect.
Friends, so many of us have lost the notion that God loves to laugh with us. He loves to dance with us. We serve a God who desires to see our joy in action. We serve a God who longs for us to let him into the place where our laughter lives.
As parents, I think we so often try to stifle our kids joy using the excuse that we’re teaching them to adhere to the rules of this world. For example, I could have easily told her to stop, she would disrupt others around her who are trying to worship God. As if she is in the way and not in His presence with the church. How insane is that y’all?!
I would encourage us to let go of that thinking. While our kids very much need to be taught how to be obedient so that one day they will know what obedience to the Lord looks like, they do not need to be stifled because we fear this world. Yep. I’m going there.
Are we correcting our children because we know that people are watching us? Expecting us to have well behaved children? Or are we correcting them because what they are doing truly does not align with our Father? These are the parenting questions we need to be asking ourselves. Are we, at the root of our discipline, teaching them Gods character or stifling who they are? (More on this at a later time)
They need to know that their joy, their freedom to laugh, play, and delight with their father is the best place to be. They need to know that God loves when they delight in Him and with Him.
We need to realize that when they are laughing and playing, God is not sitting there correcting them. In fact, he is holding them, twirling them, smiling with them begging others to join in.
Are you in a place where you have forgotten that your father wants to dance and laugh with you?
Look to your kids. They know all to well how to dance and laugh freely with their Father without rules of this world holding them back. They know a God who laughs with them. Who twirls them.
The next time you want to correct your child because they are playing freely during a time that you don’t believe to be the best time, stop and ask yourself, “Is God in the business of correcting right now or is my heart chained by fears of this world?”
That answer is everything.
The our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ” The Lord has done great things for them.”
Psalms 126:2
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Want to dive into this more with me? Get some real life scenarios on how I’ve struggled with this and what we do to help? We’ll dive into how I’ve found this again as an adult as well as how i balance this as a mom. Join me on Wednesday in my Prayer Filled Chaos facebook group.
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