The Next Lesson

It has been said that God is easily pleased, but difficult to satisfy. This became apparent to me today in class watching a video on 'how children learn in Pre-K'. I watched as the children learned to do basic tasks such as putting puzzles together, writing simple words, even working together. The teacher marveled at all of their accomplishments, applauding and then quietly moving them on to something new. It came to me that this is just what God does with us. He is so infinitely pleased by steps that are, by any standards under heaven, probably elementary and very basic. We learn to trust Him, we learn to forgive, we do some small kindness we might not have done before, and it is as if we have conquered the world to Him . . . but then it is on to the harder stuff. It would be tragedy to be applauded day in and day out for doing simple addition. He wants us to one day know physics. Spelling cat will lead to reading Shakespeare. We were not made to sit back into an easy-chair with our accomplishments (heaven knows there'll be plenty of time for that). In the same moment He is filling us with praise for learning, the next lesson has already begun.