Guys, I don’t even know what to tell you about 2016. We’re entering the second week of February and it’s been a ride already! I’ve always heard that following the Lord is an adventure and life has proven that very thing, time and time again.
I’ve been doing the Precept study – which you KNOW I love! – on the life of Abraham. It starts us right where the Lord calls Abram (soon to be Abraham) away from the place he and his family have known…away from every familiar and comfortable thing…to follow Him to a land that He would show Him…a land that the Lord promises to bless through the many descendants that shall come from the house of Abram.
Intriguing offer – would you do it? We’d all like to think we would, wouldn’t we? But sometimes, it’s not so easy. There are memories and relationships and impossibilities (seemingly, of course) and details to hash out and things to pack and things to mull over and think about and ideas to bounce off of our friends and confirmations to get and and and! But Abram made it look easy; the text simply says, “So Abram went…” What faith, yes?! I feel like I can definitely relate to this part of the story because it reminds me so much of how we got to where we are now… We had $5000 in a savings account, nowhere to live, nowhere to go and no job waiting for us; all we knew was we were supposed to go, so go we did.
One of the many things that I love about the story of Abram besides his faithfulness to the Lord, is the Lord’s faithfulness to Him. Even in his sin and his lies and poor decisions, the Lord still acts on His behalf and kept leading Him on in the way he already said that he would go…
It has been such a beautiful reminder for me the past couple of weeks. I so badly want to be obedient to Him – isn’t it the least that I could do? Isn’t the blessing that comes from obedience worth the discomfort of a new thing?
In that search for knowing obedience and knowing His will, Abram settles my soul that should I misstep, should I have heard wrong, should I have made the poor choice…He’s not leaving me. He’s not forsaking me. Should I willfully disobey, He will HATE my sin of disobedience but continue to love me just as He has done before my birth. That’s a beautiful thing, yes?
Sometimes waiting on the Lord is strenuous…especially for a control freak person who is very type A and likes to have all of their ducks in a row and have them in a row immediately. Don’t ask me how I know. *ahem*
I’m at the point that I just wanna do what He wants me to do and I don’t even care what that is. Not a bad place to be, eh?
I look at Abram’s story and it’s wrapped up in such a nice little bow that it makes the obedience part look easy. The Lord said, “do this,” so Abram did. He traveled here and built an altar…he traveled there until the Lord spoke again…he went on his merry way until the Lord gave Him some more instructions. Well, that sounds easy enough – no wonder he was faithful!
But when you look at the great distance he actually traveled (on foot, mind you) and all he must have encountered – all of the little hardships and happenings and rocks in the road and people he happened upon – he continually had to make choices for obedience that we don’t hear about in the text, even just in the daily grind. It wasn’t like he magically appeared in the next town because that’s where the text picks up; he actually had to GET there and that alone wasn’t always an easy feat.
Isn’t it the day to day choices for obedience that usually get us? I find myself begging for Him to reveal what I’m to do in the big decisions…am I good at letting Him govern the small ones, too? When Wryder poops in his pants for the thousandth time since we started potty training, do I choose grace (obedience) and talk to him levelly or do I raise my voice? When Sawyer continually guesses at words instead of sounding them out, do I teach her how to do it properly (obedience) or do I lose my cool? When Sayble is fussy do I stop everything I’m doing and comfort her (obedience) or do I act inconvenienced? When Wrex asks for my help outside and the wind is howling, so I jump up to help him with a good attitude (obedience) or complain and tell him to make it snappy? Well, that was all fun to write… *ahem*
I just can’t help but think that if it blesses His heart that we wait on Him before we make the big decisions in our life, how much MORE does it bless Him when we call on Him for EVERY decision in our life? It’s why we have to stay hooked up. It’s why we have to be in the Word. It’s why we have to have Scripture memorized and dropped in our hearts. It’s why we have to respond and not react. It’s why we have to consciously choose obedience in all the little things just as carefully as we would for the big things…because all the little things? They become the big things…
Lord, help me to have a heart that chases after you in ALL things. You are worthy of my obedience in every phase and every stage and every minute…