Ignorance is Bliss

This past weekend, I was able to have a great conversation with my family. Talking with my aunt and uncle about growing up poor and how the cycle of poverty is such a tough thing to break, especially in terms of financial planning and knowledge while curbing issues like entitlement. My aunt made this comment: "When I look back on it, the cool thing about it was that I didn't know I was poor." I thought about it and responded, "I can't say that's true for me...I knew."

So then, I thought about it. Why did I know? How could she have not known? Light bulb...birth order. My aunt Cheryl is the baby girl. On the other hand, I'm the oldest. Older siblings are probably made aware of the circumstances they live in well before the younger ones because they have been in it longer. They are also able to shield and protect their younger brothers and sisters from some of the things they discovered or experienced much sooner in their lives to maintain the innocence or reduce the levels of stress of the younger ones.

Then it hit me! When my brothers and sister were born, it became painstakingly obvious that we were in the struggle. When my siblings were born, my responsibilities increased tremendously. I had diapers to change, food to cook, hair to comb, baths to give, and the list goes on and on. My mom worked hard, everyday. She woke up first and got mostly ready. Then, she woke me up to get mostly ready. Together, we woke the little ones up and did our duties. The process repeated at the end of the day with bus stop pick up, homework, and bedtime stories. So the long and short of it was this: I had been here longer, so I had a duty that put me closer to the action. I was "in the know".

Interestingly, this is the same thing in the Spirit. Those of us who found God earlier have been walking and stumbling and falling longer, so we are "in the know". We are more aware of the struggle because we are closer to the action. When we have new brothers and sisters born into the Kingdom, we have a duty to them. We have to care for them and guide them. We have to love them and build them up. We try our best to shield them from the snares and pitfalls that, at some point, have gotten the best of us. Because they are younger in the Spirit, they are unaware of many things with which we have already been made familiar. The older we grow in the Spirit, the more we realize just how jacked up things are AROUND us; the more comfortable we get with acknowledging just how jacked up we are WITHIN.

However, youngins in the Spirit aren't quite as aware, so they are much more blissful with their new found relationship with God. And as badly as we want to, we can't rush their spiritual maturity. We can't push them further than God has said they are ready to go. It doesn't make us better than them. It doesn't mean we even necessarily know more than them. It simply means that they've been entrusted to us, so we gotta do what we gotta do FOR them. Listen to them. Converse with them. Challenge them. Encourage them. Love on them. Pray for them. Much like being the older sibling, we have to hold their hands, dust off scraped knees, and be the one they lean on for Spiritual guidance and strength; letting them figure it all out in their own time and in their own way. Be Blessed. XOXO