Lessons from a Mango tree; journal entry from West Africa

Months later, the Father brings me back to this journal entry from West Africa. 

"Give this to me when you go to America." 

The Mango tree in the front yard has small, tiny green unripe and premature mangos on it. "Give me a mango! If I don't get one now, someone else will get it!" 

30 Children approach our truck. "Give me an egg! Just one egg!" "Give me money!" "Give me your shoes!" 

In this place, we are constantly being asked for things. Every week, our housekeeper in the city asks for my ipod. My answer never changes, but yet she always asks. It's draining. It's heart-hurting. It makes me think about the way I am with the Father. There are times when all I do is ask. The reason the people here ask for things is because they believe we have so much that we can afford to give everything away and then get more things later.

 The reason I ask is because I'm selfish, but also because I forget my place. The people here don't know their place; the little children that jump up and down grabbing my hand and arm long for attention, oblivious to the fact that they are loved and cherished more than they can imagine. 

I DO know these things, and yet why do I forget? Why do I approach my Father forgetting who He is, and who I am to Him? I know that His way is perfect, that His word proves true, and that He will provide and protect me. And yet, I always ask without stopping to think that things could be going on for my good. We tell the children no because an unripe mango is bad for them, and that waiting for them to be ripe is for their good. Right now, I'm realizing that the season I'm in is like a chlid asking for a mango. 

But instead of asking the next day, and the next, I'll wait patiently until the mango is ripe.