Rattlesnakes Really Are Better Than Butterflies

So, my youngest brother, Jaylon, came to visit EJ and me for a week, and the Lord had LOTS to show me. One thing that struck me in particular had to do with a souvenir from our zoo trip.

If there is any such thing as an animal connosieur, then Jaylon is it- especially when it comes to reptiles and amphibians. This guy, who is 10 years old, is the most fun kid to take to the zoo, because he educates YOU instead of the other way around. We enjoyed our zoo trip to say the least; and at the end of it, Jaylon decided he wanted a token by which to remember it.

If you know Jaylon (and I'm assuming you don't :-)), then you know that he not only loves reptiles, but he loves art. So, he chose a set of plastic butterflies to be painted from the souvenir shop as his reminder of our fun forever. It came with four colors- red, blue, yellow and green. As soon as we got home (exhausted and limping from the four hour/3.5 mile zoo path), he wanted to paint his butterflies. Well, I had been planning to take him to a pottery painting shop at the Factory (shout out to Third Coast Clay) ever since I discovered it a year before. I didn't want him to have a cheap version of what I knew he would enjoy just days before I had planned for it to happen. But since he didn't know that, he asked me more than ten times a day if he could paint those doggone butterflies.

And then I realized what God was showing me. Sometimes I get so anxious for the things that He's shown me I'm either good at or he has for me, and I want to prematurely force the way that is visible to me. Jaylon didn't trust me yet to take him to do something as cool as paint pottery. He only knew that his butterflies were right in front of him. I had to ask myself if I really trust God to do "cool" things designed especially for me in my life. These days, the Lord is encouraging me to be still and know that He is God. He says that I don't have to be anxious for ANYthing, because He has every good thing for me.

When Jaylon and I walked into the pottery painting shop, his eyes were bigger than I've ever seen them. There was one rattlesnakes left on the shelf just for him to paint. The number and shades of the available colors were many times more than were in his souvenir paint kit. His response once he realized this was why he couldn't paint the butterflies yet-"Man, now I'm salty cuz I was so impatient." Lol.

I don't want to miss or cheapen what God has for me, nor do I want to be "salty" when He shows me how impatient I've been in the wake of my TRUE blessings. What about you guys?

PS. His painted rattlesnake was pretty hot, by the way. That boy has vision!