monkey see, monkey do…

As a child I grew up with a choir in my house.  Not your typical group of singers, mind you. I, at age five was the conductor of a professional singing group.  of mostly stuffed animals. Yes, its very true.  Their choir loft was our couch in the den and  I loved to conduct them.  I would set them up in their appropriate sections, the dolls in the soprano section and the larger dogs and bears were the tenors and basses.  Once in a while my sister, Marilyn would sit in with the altos.  If it was Marilyn’s turn to conduct, I’d always join the bass section.

This all came about because I had a superb role model.  Watching my dad direct our church’s adult choir, and youth choir was just a part of my regular, every day growing up.  My sister and I were there for most of the rehearsals on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons.  I thought it looked like a fabulous occupation and wanted to be a part of it.

In bold attempts to be like my dad, I’d put on records ranging from The Children’s Bible Hour  singers to the Robert Shaw Chorale singing the Messiah.  With music flooding the house, and my chorus in place on the couch, I would wave my arms wildly, singing at the top of my lungs, pleased with the whole production.  I think I was the original little monkey…

Truly, there is no greater form of flattery than imitation.  I loved my dad and wanted to be like him. I still do.

Recently I’ve noticed something going on with my own children.  Particularly my little Isaac.  I didn’t figure it out at first.  He loves to play games on the ipod, on the wii, on the computer.  Oh, and he’s good at it.  But, he begs for it.  He wants to hold the iphone in his hands all the time.

And then a lightbulb went on.  He wants to, because we do.  Clearly,our actions have lead him to believe we value it, and so he places it at a high level of importance.   Its not that ipods, iphones, computers, or wii games are bad.  They aren’t.  But they have put my heart and mind on notice.

My sweet little boy Isaac is going to imitate. He is my little monkey and I call him that quite affectionately sometimes; we have a lot in common, he and I do.  yikes. I have to choose more carefully what I am doing as his example.   Yes, I realize that this is basic parenting 101, but I forget it all the time.  I can’t make the same choices in front of my children again and again, all the while hoping they will act differently than me.

What am I really saying?  I am going to have to be more like Christ, valuing what He values, conforming my actions to His will.  I know in my heart of hearts that the more I spend time with Him, the more I fall in love with Him, the more I will become like Him.  But still, its not easy.     I love how Paul tells of God’s grace, given to him when he needed it in the middle of tough stuff.  His words are really my only hope…

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.                   2 Cor. 12:9&10