Are We Willing?

I watched their family across the restaurant as I was dining one day with my friends. The parents were clearly low key kind of people but they were also disciplinarians. The love they shared for their children was evident. The fun they had with them and the joy that those two daughters brought to their parents' lives was unmistakable. When their meal was concluded, they sat around the table smiling and laughing with their friends and then I noticed the youngest daughter. She was pushing the bounds of her parents' patience. "Lisa Grace," said the mother, "sit down." The child ignored her. "Lisa Grace . . . what did I tell you? Sit down." Lisa Grace sat. A few seconds later, the little girl was swirling and twirling around her father with glee and before you knew it she was hiding under his chair. "Lisa, get off of the floor. We don't get on the floor in a restaurant." She ignored his command. Again the father spoke. "Lisa, get off of the floor." This time she obeyed.

Little Lisa wasn't doing anything horrible necessarily. Clearly, she was a good child. So why didn't she just follow her parents' instruction in the first place?

I realized, as I observed the interchange, that the parents were the authority. They were that line that gives us the rules for living, demonstrates the boundaries that exist for us, shows us how far we can go without harming ourselves. The parents' authority was well-intended. It was meant for Lisa Grace's good. But for whatever reason, she could not trust it. She had to push the bounds. She was unwilling to admit that her parents might know better than she. Then I realized that Lisa Grace is just human.

Her parents represent that Universal force of Life (that some of us call God.) That force wants to carry us to safety, to show us a way for our lives that is higher and better than what we can dream. Lisa Grace is like humanity. We push our boundaries. We force our ways. We ignore what we are told and sometimes we painfully learn the hard way that if we had just been willing to trust God and let life unfold as it would, ease would be a more predominant word in our vocabulary.

We have traversed the stages of force and we have discovered the power that exists in claiming both courage and neutrality, but the level of willingness is the most powerful that we have examined to date. Willingness is that stage that rockets us to new levels of power. Unlike neutrality where work is done with sufficiency, willingness strives for excellence. This is the level where self-esteem flourishes, where people are unafraid to try new things. Where, in the face of challenges, one is not afraid, but faces them head on knowing that Life will provide the appropriate path. The mantra of this path may well be, "it's all good!" It is all good, too! It is all good because the person that lives from willingness knows that God works for our good in every situation; that life does not mean ill for us, but blessing alone. Willing people bounce back from hardships, they operate out of compassion and thus they give back to society in ways that serve transform the larger picture of our lives as a society. They are introspective and always ready to improve themselves.

Lisa may be a bit too young yet to recognize the value of living from willingness. She will get there, I have no doubt and one day she may be having the same interaction with her children.

The question is will we get there? Are we willing? Do we insist on standing in the way of where life wants to carry us? Do we flail against God? Willingness is freedom if we let it be. May we indeed let it be!