lessons in harry potter

I was reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today and stumbled upon a passage that sparked some thought in me. Sorry the excerpt is a bit long.

 "'Dumbledore says, 'stay where you are.''

 'Why?' said Harry eagerly, dropping the end of his trunk. 'Why does he want me to stay? What else did he say?'

 'Nothing whatsoever,' said Phineas Nigellus, raising a thin black eyebrow as though he found Harry impertinent.

 Harry's temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass. He was exhausted, he was confused beyond all measure, he had experienced terror, relief, then terror again in the last twelve hours, and still Dumbledore did not want to talk to him!

 'So that's it, is it?' he said loudly. 'Stay where you are'? That's all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those Dementors, too! Just stay while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won't bother telling you anything, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!'

 'You know,' said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry, 'this is precisely why I loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every detail of his plans to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to note that following Dumbledore's orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that you alone feel and think, you alone recognize danger, you alone are the only one clever enough to realize what the Dark Lord may be planning-'"

Now, for those of you who haven't read the Harry Potter series, first, you're missing out. Secondly, it may be hard for you to get past the story details. However, embedded in this passage is a picture of how our hearts and minds often behave in response to God.


So often God has plans for us, and he doesn't choose to confide every little detail of those plans to us. And so often, we respond like Harry. We throw our hands up in the air, and shout about how God must think we can't handle it. And yet his commands and plans have never failed us before (that is, when we didn't interfere in said plans).


Instead of believing that God has a reason to say, "stay where you are" or simply, "wait," we rush to the assumption that there must be more information that he is supposed be giving us. We often resist the act of just listening and following his instruction.


I am such an impatient, little know-it-all. I want to know the plans or make them myself. And when God doesn't oblige, I go searching for other ways or other answers. I can feel that habit changing in me, but it's been a process. I hope that as I continue to grow, God helps me to become more skilled at taking these sometimes small answers for their full meaning- and obey.