The Tale of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter

There is something about Beatrix Potter that is so wonderful, so timeless and so lovely that few have been able to compete. The stories are brilliant, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it is the illustrations that captivate our hearts. For those who haven't ever found Peter Rabbit here's why we love him;

Peter is a naughty rabbit who never does as he is told by his mother. In his first book, he finds his way into Mr McGregor's garden where the veggies are plenty but the trouble is more.

Beatrix Potter makes no bones about Peter from the off "...but Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight off.." And so we very quickly find our human truth right here on the opening lines we think we know best.

Mrs Rabbit, who has already tragically lost her husband to one of Mrs McGregor's famous pies, tells her little bunnies to keep out of mischief and stay away from the McGregor garden. Peter does not do what he is told. He hops straight off and squeezes under the gate of the garden and has a merry old time ransacking Mr McGregor's prize veg. So much so, he ends up too fat to squeeze back under the gate when the owner returns.

Peter thought he knew best. He certainly thought he knew better than his mother. And he went with it. And, while as a parent, I can shake my head and wag my finger at the little rabbit, I am actually no better. I also think I know best despite the fact it has been proven I do not.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. Isaiah 5v8

And here is our fundamental Bible truth - God knows best. Even as I type it, a flood of times when I have questioned this come into my head. Followed by a wealth of hypothetical scenarios in which there could be an exception to this rule. But that is not God talking - and it's a very old conversation.

And I know this to be true because God cannot take control of the universe other than in the best possible way - even if it makes no sense to me. He cannot have an off day, a P.J. day or a day where "it will do." To do so would mean He wasn't God.

When I was about 10, I decided I wanted to bake by myself. My mum was

convinced I was capable and asked what I was baking. I told her "something chocolately" and, suspecting that I was a genius in the kitchen, that I "didn't need to know exactly what it was." She did, like all good mothers, question this. But I managed to reassure her by telling her I knew exactly what ingredients to include - I had watched a T.V. programme on baking. (Actually, I hadn't, but she clearly couldn't see my chef's genius just yet and I needed to get in that kitchen.) So she left me to it. And I did make "something chocolately" - in that it involved chocolate somewhere after orange peel but before the milk and jam combo (which I also invented I'll have you know!) It was not a success. And I was left thinking that, perhaps, I was not a secret culinary master of the universe. and that, maybe, those recipe things were worth a quick glance.

And I have not changed. Well, I do now follow recipes (well, for the most part but some are really long) but I do still think I can just 'do stuff'. My husband will tell you that his most dreaded words to hear from me are "I had a spare 5 minutes". Because he knows full well that I will have striped the bathroom walls whilst sat on the loo, demolished a fitted wardrobe while the baby slept or smashed every tile off the wall while he was at a meeting.

And while applying this to my domestic life is inconvenient at best, I also apply it to my spiritual life as well.

That doesn't need prayer - it needs action.

They don't need a work of the Holy Spirit, they need me to just tell them where they're going wrong.

As a model church member I can be assured of some level of peace and tranquility in my life, right?

And so when things happen that I wasn't expecting or don't understand I think God has lost His mind and had some sort of break down. All because I KNOW WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED INSTEAD!

But the Bible doesn't say I know best. It says God does.

It tells me I know very little indeed in comparison.

And it also tells me that because He knows best and I know so little I won't always understand what is happening to me or to those I love.

It's as old as the garden of Eden. God places me in a situation and asks me to trust that He knows what He's doing, and I, like Eve before me, give in to the temptation to take control. If you have small people in your life you don't need me to tell you that this is the bread and butter of a day. We are born thinking we know what we're doing. Born not taking the advice, not trusting that we need someone bigger than us to be in charge. And sometimes, like Peter, we and they have to learn the hard way about who knows best.