Recognize Success

Psalm 73: 22-24  I was stupid and ignorant.  I acted like nothing but an animal toward you. But I was still always with you! You held my strong hand! You have guided me with your advice;  later you will receive me with glory.

I’ve got a friend who’s going through a difficult time with his teenager. They seem unmotivated, uninterested and quite frankly, almost disengaged.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time at their place and have had an opportunity to see a number of interactions between my friend and his child.

From everything I’ve seen, he’s a good father. He’s genuinely interested in their friends, the way they dress, hygiene, school activities and school performance.  The kid seems to be well-liked, he’s always talking with friends or hanging out with kids from school, but well, they just don’t seem to connect and don’t seem to care.

I’ve watched my buddy talk, rationalize, explain and even yell about school performance until he’s blue in the face, but nothing seems to be getting through. It was the conversation that they had last night, along with some other things by buddy had shared, it finally connected.

See if this makes sense.  Imagine if every time we didn’t do exactly what we were supposed to, or failed a life test, our heavenly Father pointed it out. Can you imagine how completely useless any effort what so ever would seem?  Why would any of us want to do anything?  Instead, our Father accepts us for who we are and provides us with gentle course corrections that keep us on the correct path.  Not only does He give us gentle nudges, but he rewards us when we’ve leaned a lesson or done something right…wait He rewards us…? He does if you open your eyes, your mind and your heart.  There are glimpse of His glorious beauty revealed. There are moments of laughter when you need it most and there are kind words and a helping hand to lift you up and dust you off.

Now back to my revelation.  As they were talking about school performance, there was a focus on what the child was failing rather than the positive things they were doing. Instead of recognizing the success, the failures were magnified.  So in my head popped this thought, what if we tried to help our kids with gentle non-judgmental nudges? Reward them for the good things they’re doing and lessons they’ve learned and offer a helping hand up and a kind word when they’ve been knocked down.  In other words, recognizing the successes rather than magnifying the failures.

Prayer: Father, there is not one of us who is perfect, I make mistakes everyday. Thank you for not pointing out all of my failures.  Help me to recognize success rather than magnify failure. Amen