An Unpopular Word
Obedient. The word obedient is quite countercultural. Obedience is often linked to weakness and insignificance. It is linked to being soft and goes against our glorified idea of independence. Yet the Bible is full of stories about Jesus being obedient. This contradiction speaks to the struggles we face as Christians trying to live in this world.
I personally struggle with obedience. I don’t struggle as much with hearing God, because he makes his voice very apparent to me. It is what I do after I hear it that is the problem. My obedience is the problem. My capacity to be a first-time listener is where I fall short.
As an OT, one of the things I talk with parents about is the three skills a child needs to be ready for kindergarten. Those three skills are being able to hold a thought, being able to wait unentertained, and being a first-time listener. My dear friend, Amy Stadler, coined the term first-time listener many years ago when she worked as a preschool teacher. Being a first-time listener means doing what you are asked to do the first time you are asked.
We work hard to teach children the importance of being first-time listeners. But I feel a little convicted when it comes to me being a first-time listener with God. When God tells me what to do, I play all kinds of mind games. I question whether he is really speaking to me? Does he really mean me? Does he really mean now? Is he really asking me to do that? I am far from being a first-time listener when it comes to God.
In Philippians 2:8, Paul writes:
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
The magnitude of this verse needs very little explanation. God has sent his only son to earth to become human and to ultimately die a brutal death for all of us sinners so that we can have enteral life with him.
As I reflect on my struggles with obedience and first-time listening, I can only imagine if I were in Jesus’s shoes, I’d be like “Couldn’t you maybe send someone else? Do you really need me to die like that? Couldn’t it just be a quick painless death? Are you sure people need to spit on me? I really don’t like other people’s spit on me. I definitely don’t want to have to carry that. Could you get someone else to carry it? Do all those people need to betray me? It really hurts my feelings when people betray me. Couldn’t you just give me a few more people on my side while I go through this? Do I really need to be nailed up there? Couldn’t we just tie me up there?”
You get this point. I struggle with obedience and first-time listening.
But, Jesus didn’t. And because he didn’t, we all have access to eternal life and God’s calling on his life was fulfilled. Because Jesus didn’t struggle with obedience, our lives have been completely transformed.
I feel confident that God will never ask any one of us to die an unimaginable death on a cross. That was the ultimate act of love reserved for Jesus. So, then why do I struggle with obedience in the small things? Everything God asks us to do will be less than dying on a cross and will always advance the gospel. But here I sit in my pride-filled, self-reliant ways debating with God whether or not he REALLY wants me to do that. Or questioning if I’m really the person he’s talking to. It makes me wonder what in this world is missing or lacking, and what in God’s plan has been impacted by my lagging obedience.
Do you ever struggle with obedience?
If so, please join me as I continue to work every day to release my pride and embrace a humble posture allowing his ways to be the first thing I trust and listen to.
Join me as I work at listening and responding appropriately the first time God tells me to do something.
Join me in making the words humility, obedience, follower, and surrender the coolest words we speak! Allowing them to replace words like self-reliance, pride, independent, and noncompliant.
And if you are raising small children, make sure to teach them to not only be first-time listeners, but that it is earthly practice so they can be first-time listeners when God speaks to them.
It is countercultural to be obedient, but God isn’t asking us to be obedient to the world, he asked us to be obedient to him.
Let’s start with a small step of practicing first-time listening with God, and then watch it blossom into a beautifully humble and obedient life.
God, thank you. Thank you for your patience with us as we question, wonder, defer, or delay your requests and callings on our lives. We ask that you help us trust you so we can be first-time listeners when you speak and we can be fully humble and obedient to you. We know your plans are greater than ours and we ask that you help our choices and actions reflect that belief. We ask that you continue to guide us so we can live lives as beautiful and rich as you have designed them to be.