Ambition

I [capital air quotes] lead [close capital air quotes] a Bible study group on Wednesday nights.

Yeah, I do that too:  wed .. nez .. day.

It's been a pretty good run for me, personally.
I pretty much just compile a list of questions:

• Hey, what's that mean?
• Howdy, how's that applicable?
• Etc.

Lately, the topic's been repeatedly, inescapably abiding.

Recently, a question was:

• Do you have any personal ambitions that make it difficult to abide with Jesus?

and it's had me thinking ever since.

I probably should say, "thinking on purpose, thinking up front, thinking out loud," because the subject of personal ambition has been running in my background memory for some time now.

Now, I've never been one of those goal-oriented kinds of people or even the kind of person who wakes up with a plan for the day.  Just, whatever, okay?

Maybe I should have taken one of those skills or talents tests when I was still young enough to be taught new tricks.  Maybe knowing early on what I might be any good at would have goaded me to go.  I don't know.  Whatever.  Okay?

But there is a thing that I have known, 

a thing I've known is not my thing, 

not for me, 

not my forte.

If I've had any nameable ambition, it's been to not hang out with kids.

(Collective gasp, kid-lovers.  Get it out of your system.)

It's really not that I don't love them.  The Lord knows that I do love them ~ particularly my own.  I just don't understand them.  Don't know how to play with them, for sure.

Think I'm kidding?  I tried to play a game with a g'baby once, a game I'd seen the kids playing with her, some "pretend to bite the kid's hand" dog-jaw game.  I actually bit her.  We both cried.  It seemed obvious, then, that we'd both be safer if I just skipped the whole play thing.

What, then, but to aspire to empty-nesting?  It's a natural-seeming goal for a middle-aged woman, correct?  It's not wrong that I should aim to eat my food without sharing half of every single bite, watch what I very well want that isn't a cartoon, come and go and dress as I please without every decision hinging on the needs of a toddler, mop my floor just once per week ... right?

Never mind any true desires, if I'd had any.

And now that I've gotten all of that out my system, thank the Lord that I'm able-bodied and that our circumstances (humbly, prayerfully) allow for us to raise our two-year-old grandson. Thank you, Jesus, for every one of my kids and grandkids and for every child with whom You'll grant me the blessing to hang out.

No, I mean it.

Personal ambitions that make it difficult to abide with Jesus?  Well, I might have hoped to be a fairly average grandparent, one who just gets visited with some regularity, one who may or may not have special skills, one who gets to write complete sentences in one sitting.

But I don't usually get to write sentences without consequences:

I guess kids are just the task that's been assigned to me.
I guess I'll just aspire to play along.
Lord, just help me not to bite anybody!

When you obey me, you are abiding in my love, just as I obey my Father and abide in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your cup of joy will overflow! John 15:10-11