Obeying God - Lauren​ Johnston

Why is obedience so hard? From an early age, something within us seems to cry out, “I’m not doing it your way. I want it my way!” My precious four-year-old and two-year-old boys are evidence of this on the daily. It feels like I must ask them to clean the playroom multiple times before they even hear me and even then, those multiple asks just get them in the playroom. Then, once they are in there, they seem to lose sight of the task at hand and not put toys away. Grrr, didn’t you hear me the first ten times I asked? Sometimes I ashamedly resort to screaming to get their attention, while fielding the ever constant, “but why, Mommie” question. Obedience just doesn’t come naturally.
 
Lately, the Lord has graciously shown me that I’m not that different than my preschoolers. I can certainly have an “I want it my way” mentality and often, the Lord puts things on my heart for weeks (okay, months!) that I fail to respond to until He’s “yelling” at me the way God so graciously does through putting it in front of me in His word, church sermons, songs, friends and a variety of ways until my heart is saying… enough already, I hear you Lord! Jesus tells us that if we love Him, we will do what He’s commanding us to do. He wants our obedience. He wants it more than our serving, reading our Bible, giving financially or even worship. You might say that obedience is God’s love language.
 
I’m learning that obedience often results with a deep-seated joy and peace. There’s no better example of the obedient life than the one we have in Jesus. God calls us to obey Him with all our hearts, just like Jesus showed us how to do. His word says in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
 
My prayer is for us to all have hearts to be obedient to God, knowing and trusting our lives to the One who gave us life.
 
Written by one of own Sky Ranch Staff...
Lauren​ Johnston
Sky Ranch Event Specialist