Are they asleep yet?

Are they still awake?

When my children were babies and I would lay them down for a nap, I would keep the door ajar because if the door was closed, I never knew if the kids were asleep or awake until I actually heard them cry or talk.

Most parents have baby monitors now so whenever I babysit one of my grandchildren, I always check the monitor so that I can see if the baby is asleep or awake. I often find myself watching the babies through the monitor and smiling as I watch them sleep or play in their crib.

One day after I had laid my grandson down for his nap, he started fussing so I turned the baby monitor on so I could see what he was doing. I watched him as he stood in the crib rubbing his tired little eyes as he rested his head down on the top of the bar of the crib. Although I wanted to go in and pick him up and hug him, I knew that he was tired and would fall asleep soon if I let him fuss a little. I knew that it was important for him to take a daily nap in order for him to be rested and cheerful when his parents came home.

As I watched my grandson fight his much needed nap, I thought that this is probably similar to what God watches us do. God obviously doesn’t need a monitor to see us but many times during our lives, I’m sure that most of us have complained about certain situations that we did not want to face. We couldn’t seem to figure out what we needed to do so we complained and asked God to make it go away or solve the problem for us.

What we don’t realize is that God knows that we need that particular struggle in our lives for our spiritual growth. He knows what is best for us, just as we know what is best for our little ones. God may be using our struggles as teaching moments. If we just allow our Lord to guide us, we will find that He is always doing what is in our best interest.

He is ALWAYS watching us with His own heavenly monitor.