Release to Greater Things

God wants to release us into greater things, we just have to allow him to.

We are home, it’s summer break (albeit in quarantine), so our usual foray to pools in parks and splash pads isn’t a thing this year. Our bike skills however have been strengthened, and our ventures into new creative things have been an adventure! It truly is hard not to wallow into what this summer could have been, or what truthfully these past few months could have been, but in our family, we are trying to make the most of it… And a few life lessons have been sprinkled in along the way.

One such lesson confronted me with my… for lack of a better term, control freak ways. My ever creative daughter had the beautiful and messy idea of creating a coloring/drawing stand for people in the neighborhood. This season of just being in the house, as I said, has allowed us new opportunities to test out our creative muscles, and so test them out my children did! She enlisted the help of her brother to help and together, they made price points, examples, signs, and divvied out job descriptions for their fledgling company and were set to launch right in our front yard.

However, they had something in their way. Me.

For one thing, their signs for advertisement would not be visible to anyone 10 feet away, let alone draw the attention of cars passing by.

Additionally, I know that my children tend to rush and not give their 100% effort into, well, pretty much anything at this point, and I did not want the quality of what they produced to be shoddy.

I knew that letting them run this “company” would require my supervision and effort, and truthfully, I could think of a million other things I had to do...namely vacuuming up the tiny paper scraps they had left all over their creation station.

And truly, who was going to buy these mediocre drawings? I certainly would not stop to do so. 

But these kids persisted. I was faced with choice- am I going to control this? Or am I going to release them to do what is on their heart and soul? Am I going to shoot something down before it even gets a chance to begin? Would they learn more from me telling them everything they could do better or what could go wrong, or simply allowing them to do it? 

And finally, I realized some very important truths about release of my kids (and myself) for greater things.

It does not matter how visible you are. What matters is obedience and stepping into all that God has created you to be. 

All of our efforts, no matter how great, polished, beautiful, and perfected they are will never quite hit the mark and be good enough. But, what matters is obedience and stepping into all that God has created you to be. 

There will always be 3,442,981 better things to do than the one thing that God has called you to do. But once again, what matters is obedience and stepping into all that God has created you to be.

We need to lay ourselves- our talents, gifts, and abilities at the feet of Jesus. He wants them. He treasures them. He thinks they are special.

Moral of the story is this. Greater things happen when we release our children to do them. Greater things happen in us when we release ourselves to God. The key to greater things is the release- the leap of faith and the step out of the boat.

And so I released my children to do what was on their heart... and $37.65 later, I know I gave my kids an opportunity worth more than money. Their confidence was built. New ideas started to be hatched. They even brought the neighbor girl into their business AND paid her for it out of their profits. The release, the step of big, bold faith is how we learn that God has got us and our children. 

We just have to release what we have to allow God to release His greater things in us. 

Joshua 1:9- “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.