NO!

Tonight I struggled with my teenage children really feeling like they could just tell my husband and I what they will and won't do. Clayton needs to get a hat for his job he has coming up. He is going to be working outside in a corn field all day for about 3 - 4 weeks. He needs to get a hat to protect his face and neck. We were at a sporting goods store tonight and he kept telling us he wasn't going to wear a hat. At some point in the store he had to have a reality check and learned that he would wear a hat even if he didn't want to.

It got me thinking on the way home. How many times have we had God tell us what we were going to do and we threw a temper tantrum and said no. Ha... I know... Imagine telling God no... I'm not going to do that! But we do it all the time and have done it for a long time.

Adam and Eve said no in their actions... Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

The Iseralites did it a lot... Judges 10:6 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD...

Jonah said no... big time! Jonah 1:2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

Of course saying no to what God wanted really never works out in your favor... Although God can always make the choices we humans make work out in His favor. Wouldn't it be easier to just do what He wants in the first place? Now if I could just make my teenagers understand that!