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Have you taken the time to calculate just how fast your brain can react in even the most demanding situations? To test this, next time you know God is calling you to do something you don’t want to do, count to see how many excuses your brain can come up with in less than two minutes. Not even a high-tech computer can compete with that. However, as great as our brain is, sometimes even the smartest of us try to reason in our heads that when it comes to making decisions, we know more than God.
This is one time when your brain has let you down.
The problem with obedience has been around since the beginning of man. God tells us something, but we test our boundaries and then blame Him when something bad happens to us. True obedience – no matter what the case – never asks questions. It simply does what it’s told and trusts God with the rest. 1John 2:17 says, “And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” Abides forever. When you choose to submit to the will of God instead of your own flesh, the blessings received are not only for this earth, but even more, they are for eternity.
I love the example Joyce Meyer gives in her book The Confident Woman. She creates a mental picture of a father holding his little girl in a pool of water. As he walks further into the water, saying softly, “Deeper, deeper, deeper,” the child’s hands tighten around his arms. What the little girl fails to realize is that if her father were not holding her, she would be in over her head no matter where he walked in the pool, regardless of its depth. The same is true with us. We could never hope to make it through even the “shallowest” situations in life without God’s loving arms lifting us up. If we would only realize this sooner, more of us would live a lifestyle patterned after obedience. Even when the hard decisions come, God’s still holding us no matter how deep He takes us.
Job 36:11 says, “If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.” God wants us to obey Him because He wants to bless us. Everything that God commands us to do is always for our own good, whether or not it seems that way in its beginning stages. Remember, God sees the whole picture. From my house, I can’t see the beach. I can’t see the Statue of Liberty in the horizon. I can’t even see a tip of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. My vision is limited to where I live, and if I never knew about anything else other than what I saw day after day, I would always be content with my surroundings. The same is true with our spiritual life. God wants us to obey His direction even when we can’t make it make sense in our heads. (Note: this is where faith really comes in handy!)
Close your eyes and let Christ be your eyes for a while. Where is He trying to lead you? Are you willing to follow His guidance, or do you try to reason with Him that you know what’s best for you? “I know what I’m doing, God,” you might say to Him. “I’ll be careful.” But He doesn’t want your carefulness, just as any loving parent wouldn’t want to hear their child say, “I’ll be careful in the road.” True obedience doesn’t try to get around doing something or find an easy shortcut.
Your job isn’t to go through the scenarios in your head of what will happen if you start to follow God and it fails. Your job is to trust in His sovereignty and go forward with His plans. Your job isn’t to search the world for Mr. or Miss Right, wondering if God has heard your heart's desires or is aware of your "single" status. Your job is to trust that if God keeps closing doors for relationships in your life, it is because He is saving the BEST mate for you and is arranging to bring His choice of a spouse to you in the timing He has chosen. Your job isn’t to calculate your finances before determining whether or not you will go forward with something God has told you to do. Your job is to show God that you trust Him completely by putting your checkbook in His hands, sow your seed into God’s Kingdom in faith, and have confidence in knowing that He will cause you to reap a harvest because of your obedience. In short, your job is to trust God and obey His leadership in your life. There is a good, an acceptable, and a perfect will of God (Romans 12:2). I choose to have His perfect will for my life. What is your choice of the three?
