Why is this happening to me? I’m supposed to do what? What do you want me to do? God, this just doesn’t make any sense.
We’ve all been there haven’t we? The question looms large in our hearts and in our minds. And when there is doubt and uncertainty, the last thing that we want to hear from God is “Obey.” The last thing we want to hear from our pastor or Christian friends is “Just fight through it and keep your eyes on God.” In fact, many of us hate those cliche Christian answers, and we chalk them up to people who don’t know difficulty, people who are ignorant to the realities of just how hard it can be to live faithfully in the midst of trials. And the truth is, a lot of times, it just doesn’t make sense to obey God, especially in light of difficult circumstances.
So how ought we to respond when things are not going the way we had planned? When we wonder if God is really good, and if He’s blessing us, when we feel like He is no longer working in our lives?
The answer: Just obey.
There, I said it, and many of you will probably hate me for taking this route, but I’ll tell you right now, it’s the route the Bible takes. You can see from the first book of the Bible in God’s calling to Abram, as God commands him to leave his homeland, his countrymen, everything he knows (Genesis 12). He had everything going for him, why leave? Practically speaking, it doesn’t make any sense! But we see also with His illogical command to leave that there is great blessing that will come as a result of his faithful obedience: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). And for those of us who are believers, we are now a part of this great blessing that carried on into Christ’s life death and resurrection. Hence, the promise is for us as well.
In Joshua 6, we see Joshua as he faces the impenetrable walls of Jericho with a command from God to walk around the city once a day for six days, and then seven more times on the seventh day. And to top it all off, play some music and shout after walking around. Now, if you were a soldier and your leader told you to do this, how would you respond? I can imagine there may be some objections, “We’ve got weapons, why not use them?” “We’re just gonna walk around the city?” “Umm, Josh, have you lost your mind?” We’re talking about some thick walls here! Archaeological studies have shown that Jericho’s outer wall would have been about 6 feet thick, with the inner wall being double that! And so again, the commandment didn’t make much sense. There are a lot of barriers, literally, that could have kept Joshua and the Israelites from obedience. And as they marched around and around and on that seventh day doing all that God commanded, the wall inexplicably came crumbling down, and the Israelites took the mighty city.
When you think about Abram (later named Abraham) and even the account of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, one thing is very clear. God does the work of blessing and holding true to His promises, Abram and Joshua needed only to walk, go, and obey. Would they have been able to see the amazing work of God had they not obeyed? Imagine an Israelite soldier who decided that obedience was foolishness and left! Imagine if out of frustration and not understanding how this could at all be the right plan, he had left. He wouldn’t have been able to see those walls come crumbling down. God’s command is an opportunity for us to obey and to see His work and faithfulness in our lives; this is a blessing unto itself because we are reminded again that He is a good, trustworthy and powerful God!
The thing is, when God tells us to do something, our response of obedience or disobedience actually is a great indicator of just who we think God to be. If He is truly our God, the one we trust and know that loves us, we would obey in every moment, wouldn’t we? Especially knowing that He knows the past, present and future, all that is going in our lives, and that He is working for our good (Romans 8:28)! The question of obedience doesn’t lie in the action as much as the knowing and trusting, our faith in God and His character. Because we know God to be good and powerful, we trust and obey. In light of that truth, we must obey, not for the sake of blessing, but because we know God will bless His people and that He is in control. He is one who keeps His Word.
And so I want to ask those of you who might have made it this far down in this post. What area of your life has it been difficult to surrender up in obedience to the Lord? Are you going through a difficult time that is hard to understand? Maybe it is the command to love someone who just seems too difficult to love. Maybe it is the command to be faithful as a student, giving of yourself in your studies as unto the Lord. Maybe it’s trusting God as He is leading you to stay or to go, as you think about your future. It could be a plethora of different situations and circumstances, but in the end one thing remains the same, God in His love and grace for our lives. And when we trust in Him completely, surrendering our own plan to His, surely even in the most difficult or uncertain of times, we will obey.
“Just obey” doesn’t seem so illogical when we know the truth of our good, sovereign and powerful God.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:33 am
I understand what you are trying to say with ‘just obey.’ However, I think you (only) partly miss an important aspect of what it means to obey. We have to be careful that we aren’t encouraging a blind obedience. It is very important to consider WHAT and WHOM we are obeying. We have to ask if the ‘what’ we are obeying is consistent with the ‘good’ God that we have trust in. In other words, when you’re facing a difficult time in your life, it isn’t necessarily part of God’s plan (experiencing injustice, disease, abuse, etc.). In such a case, obedience is about the WAY in which we struggle through and live our lives faithfully.
Therefore, I think it is very much also about the act itself–not for the sake of being blessed as you said, but for the sake of faithfulness and even as a witness. In our obedience we testify to the nature of the God we trust. In your examples, you rightly mentioned aspects that would be consistent with God’s goodness and calling upon our lives as disciples, such as loving people that are difficult to love, being a faithful student, etc.
My comment is meant as a clarification or addendum to your post. Yes, we must obey, but let’s not take for granted that we obey a God who is Good. If you’re in an awful situation such as abuse, as an example, ‘just obey’ does not mean to remain in such a situation so as to ‘love’ them, or that they must suffer through it as part of God’s plan (I am not claiming that you were making this point). Otherwise, what does that say about the kind of God we trust and obey? Yes, let us obey, but let us discern, not just by ourselves in isolation, but with the community of faith how we are to obey, being aware of what that obedience says about the God we trust in. Let us not be duped into obeying something that is inconsistent with God’s character, plan, and will for us simply because we don’t understand the situation.
More succinctly, discernment (in wisdom and in fellowship) is crucial to proper obedience. For Wesleyans such as myself, that is done with the guidance of first scripture, but then also through consulting our faith tradition, our experience, and our reason. However, that is perhaps a subject for my own post, if I ever get around to it.
I hope I wrote clearly; it’s hard to organize my thoughts in this comment box =). Nice blog, though. I am trying to start one myself. You got any tips for me?
April 10th, 2011 at 6:30 am
Obedience definitely is a teaching and commandment that Christians nowadays fail to place emphasis on. What God commands us to do is not a preference or a request to us. We learn as we obey and experience joy as we obey and do what He wants us to do.
Even Christ obeyed the will of God – Romans 5:19
This is a really good post, and a reminder for me as well. Thanks!