Recently, I was standing alongside my three year old son as he was riding the carousel in the food court of our local mall. As we were going round and round, Zach looked at the kids on the horses behind us and said with a sly little grin, "we're beating them". I love the way that boy thinks. Not only were we beating them, but there is no possibility of them ever threatening our position. He is already turning out to be an eternal optimist. He wasn't comparing his position to the kids ahead of him with whom he could never catch up, he was comparing his position to the kids behind him. That's a smart kid.
I think for a three year old, comparing his position on a carousel to others is innocent and cute. The problem is that many of us, in our spiritual journey, continue that habit and it becomes something altogether different. We either go before God with a heart of complaint because of who is ahead of us on the carousel or we allow ourselves to get really puffed up because we look behind us to see how many people we are beating. I wonder if, while we whip our plastic horses so that they'll speed up, God is up in Heaven shouting, "It's not a race! It's a ride....would you just learn to enjoy the ride!"
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