Drawing Faces

I'm home visiting and little did I know I would find encouragement from something on television. I walked in to just sit on the couch and Berenstain Bears was on. I remember having one of the books when I was little and it was one of my favorites. So I started watching and of course got wrapped up in the story. The boy bear in the family started taking art lessons cause he wanted to learn how to draw faces. He starts taking the lessons and he gets frustrated cause the teacher is making everyone in the class draw circles and ovals at first. Brother Bear just wants to draw faces, not circles and ovals! The next lesson, the teacher makes them all draw three dimensional shapes but Brother Bear doesn't understand how this is going to help him draw faces. Then there is a scene later where Brother Bear is helping a younger bear swing a baseball bat and the younger bear just wants to hit the ball. Brother Bear gets frustrated with him and has to teach him things first to help him like his grip on the bat and his stance. Then he hears himself using the same words his teacher used and has an epiphany where he realizes that maybe all this silly shape-drawing really will help him draw faces.

I know this seems like such a simple lesson but it's something I really needed to hear. I was the same way when I was little. I didn't understand that playing scales really helps you learn to play actual songs on the piano and I just wanted to quit my lessons and learn to play songs on my own. I think I have been getting frustrated in this way in my spiritual life. I want to be able to encourage people, to not get distracted so easily from pursuing God whole-heartedly, to hear from God more clearly. And yet my heart doesn't understand all the time how lengths of time in prayer and the Word and meditating on the truths of the Gospel is going to help me prepare to experience God's gifts.

Thank you Lord for being gracious to speak to me in such an unexpected way. Please give me grace to obey you even when I don't understand and I get impatient!