He was holding his bat ready to swing. His coach told him get that elbow up. Immediately obedient, this one is bent on winning everything (too much like his momma, smile), he pushed his back elbow up. Evidently having your back elbow up allows you to hit the ball with more force and power, who knew?

Hold your elbow up is the equivalent to the Christ follower’s lift up your eyes….

You can skirt through life without looking to our Father in prayer, but you will lack His power. And you won’t go very far.

We’re trying to make it through life and actually do what we know we’re supposed to do, and we’re trying really hard, but we’re not asking our Father continually for His guidance. Maybe it’s just me, but is there any room in your life to seek Christ all the more…to lift up your eyes. Maybe we’re powerless, lacking in strength, because we’re not lifting up eyes in prayer to our God?

I caught myself in this. One of those kiddos opened their mouth in a powerful demonstration of their little will. The screams ripped through my body and my anger startled awake. I don’t know about you, but my kids might be strong willed but my will is stronger (smile). So instead of coaching this little soul into the grace of obedience, I dug in my heels ready to win. The problem with this approach in parenting is if you pick a battle with your kid you have to win…. If you don’t your word will soon come to mean nothing to them. There are fights to pick in life to be sure, but you shouldn’t engage children in battle; they have never been the enemy. Every battle ends up a fight does it not? So, let’s teach them instead?

Instead of seeking the Lord in the moment of tantrum, I demanded obedience and engaged in a tantrum of my very own. And yeah, you should require your children to obey, but maybe demanding isn’t the best route…maybe if we have to demand it really just shows that they need a discipline sooner rather than later? Truth, I should have sought the Lord first, before I engaged in a battle with my child, I should have engaged in the greater war. The one raging in the heavenlies over every human soul, however small, and their love of the Truth.  Lift up your eyes. This is the way you win the war and learn to actually teach your children to love the Gospel of Christ.  To obey because God is great, not because mommy is super scary and mean. Little children need to learn quickly the real reason we obey. Leave the battles to the Lord and win their hearts with kindness and gentleness, modeling the way out of sin instead of entering into their sin yourself.

My elbow wasn’t up. My eyes weren’t lifted up to see where my help comes from in that moment and I fell into sin right there with them. Isn’t that what happens to all of us? We know the right thing to do… We’re trying to tell them do it, but our attitude and hearts are so far off that we’re just as in need of repentance as the one we’re trying to get to repent.

Somehow I grappled around in that moment and afterward found the way out that the good Father promised for every temptation that would come.

I needed a plan to obey Jesus, to actually…effectively seek Him in my moments of weakness…

I knew the chance would come again and it did before the day was out. And this time I was ready. I felt the surge of annoyance, my own sinful anger wanting to take hold, but I knew the truth that that temptation holds no sway over a child of God indwelt by the Spirit of the living God, so I said no to it and lifted up my eyes in prayer.

Help us, Lord, have wisdom from above in these trying moments (James 3) so that we can help our children learn that we obey not out of fear but out of love for Christ. Help us to remember that it is your kindness that leads us to repentance. Help us to see that our firmness but even more our kindness leads little ones to repentance far quicker than our demands, annoyance, and quick anger. Remove the way of folly from us and let us hold to you. Help us to lift up our eyes…Where does our help come from? Our help comes from the Lord (Psalm 121). In Jesus name Amen.

Evidently raised elbows increase power and force when hitting a baseball, but the evidence is greater still that eyes lifted in prayer grant us an other-worldly strength from a Father quite willingly to empower us.

I’m just wading through all of these beautiful young years with you (smile). Trusting that for all our failings grace is piling up all the more. In fact I am sure that this very thing is happening even now. For of His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.