I had a long discipline session with my four-year-old this evening. It was a good half hour of discussing and her, disputing. Of course, I couldn’t end the time of discipline since I saw that her heart was still not yet right. She kept on giving excuses as to why she did what she did, and even turned to blame others for what she chose to do. The behavior was quite trivial, really, but it reflected the condition of her heart, which is never a trivial matter.

I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details of what we discussed during that half hour. I’d leave it up to you to imagine how  our conversation went, given that I told you how it was mostly about her trying to come up with excuses instead of just being sorry for her attitude. I do want to share with you, however, what my daughter realized and told me after.

Mika: *Comes up to me to hug me* “Mom? I know na what’s wrong.”

Me: *Thinking that our case was already closed* “What?”

Mika: “It’s my fault. It’s really my fault.”

Me: *curious as to where this was leading (though honestly just tempted to say, “Yeah. I thought we’ve settled that?” …which clearly, we haven’t….until now*

…. “Why do you say that?”

Mika: “I know na why I always disobey.”

Let’s pause here. Just to give you a background, Mika is the type who loooves involving angels and demons in our conversations. For a time, I tried to stop her from always thinking along these lines, but alas, I let her be (with a lot of guidance of course). Her usual line whenever she does something wrong is “Satan tempted me to *fill in the blanks*” ….sounds much like what Eve said after she ate the fruit and was confronted by God, doesn’t it?

Anyway, back to our conversation…

Mika: “I know na why I always disobey. It’s because everyday, I only ask the Holy Spirit to help me sometimes lang. I always forget to ask for help everyday. So I have a hard time obeying.”

I shared this conversation with you because personally, this is something that we’ve been wanting our kids to understand— we can try all we want, and try with all our might…But apart from God’s help and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are bound to follow our selfish desires and left to ourselves, will always choose our way. Left to ourselves, we will never want to obey. If we are to have a fighting chance everyday, then we need to constantly be aware of God’s presence and rely on His power.

God promised to give us power to overcome. But it is not a one time-big time deal. God, in His loving wisdom, chose to make His power available to us in such a way that we cannot just ask for His help sometimes or at one time. He designed it in such a way that we would need to constantly and unceasingly rely on Him and look to Him for grace.

With this, I think I also have to say that a lot of times it is also my fault. How easy it is to forget to ask for help.

You and I are not that different, Mika.

Not that different.