Obedience. Obedience
isn’t a word we like to think about, but it is a necessary word. In our house, “because I said so” is a
frequently repeated phrase. When we ask
for our children to obey us, we want them to act immediately. Delayed obedience is disobedience. And disobedience puts us outside of the
circle of God’s will. Delayed obedience,
likewise, places children outside the protection of their parents. When we tell
a child not to run in a street or touch a hot stove, we need them to trust us
and act immediately – even when it doesn’t make sense to them. To not do so can
mean serious harm for the child.
In the same way, God wants immediate obedience from us… even
though WE don’t always understand why.
In fact, we often think of obedience in big terms – leading God’s
children out of Israel, building an ark when the world has never seen rain
before, or being missionaries in a hostile country. But we need to be obedient even in the small
acts that don’t make sense to us. Things
that are so simple that we feel surely God isn’t asking us to do that.
In 2 Kings Chapter 5, Naaman is a well-known and well-respected
army commander. He leads thousands of
men, and the king looks upon him favorably.
However, Naaman suffers from a skin disease. We don’t know exactly what the disease is,
but it is clearly a torment to him. Naaman’s
servant girl tells him of a prophet in Israel who can heal him. With the king’s
blessing and under great expectations, Naaman undertakes a big journey with
gifts of gold, silver, and clothing in tow.
When he finally reaches Elisha’s home, Elisha sends a messenger out to meet Naaman and tells
him to wash seven times in the Jordan River.
“What?!” Naaman is angry. He is
an important man who has traveled many miles and put his life on hold with the
expectation that this great prophet would come out and call upon his God over Naaman. Instead, he is told by the prophet’s servant go
wash in the local body of water that Naaman deems well beneath those of his own
homeland. Blessedly, Naaman’s own
servant speaks in wisdom, and says, “My father, would you not have done a more
difficult thing? How much more so can you do this?” Naaman did as Elisha commanded, and he was
healed. It was so easy it didn’t make
sense.
In one of my social media groups, a woman found out she and
her husband were pregnant with their sixth child. This was an unwanted surprise, and they made
plans to visit an abortion clinic. On
their way to the clinic, they stopped at a gas station. A stranger went out of her way to walk up to
the mother, smile at her, wish her a good day, and say “God bless you!” The reluctant
mother felt her attitude shift. At the appointment, during the consultation
prior to surgery, she just felt they needed to leave. Crying, she urged her husband to go, and
leave they did. They scheduled a regular
maternity appointment with an OB/GYN and are excitedly looking forward to the
arrival of baby number six in August.
What do we know about the woman at the gas station? - The
one who smiled and went out of her way to bless that mother - For
all we know she had a terrible morning where her kids griped at her about
putting on their shoes for school, maybe someone cut her off in traffic, maybe
her boss was being unreasonable, maybe she just didn’t feel like smiling at
anyone. What we do know is that she
did. When God told her to walk up to a
total stranger and bless that stranger with a kind smile and words, she had no
idea the role she was playing. She just
did it because God said so.
These acts of “little” obedience show our big faith and strengthen
our relationship with God. We don’t always
need to know how our part in God’s will work out. We just need to follow and obey. So the next time, you feel the Holy Spirit
telling you to help someone reach something on a high shelf at a grocery store
or smile at a homeless person or offer your snack or open your home for a playdate
or invite someone for coffee…do it.
