I heard an interesting take on obedience recently.
Our culture’s not big on obedience. We sort-of want folks to follow the rules, but we admire the John Wayne types who ignore boundaries and “do it their way.”
For those of us who follow Jesus, there’s a bit of internal conflict. There’s that good old USAmerican blaze your own path mystique, and there’s “Follow me,” Jesus’ quiet invitation to obedience.
And that’s where this interesting definition of obedience comes in.
God’s will. God’s Way.
I thought that was pretty cool, simple and direct. But as soon as I read it I could hear the objections. How can I know God’s will for sure?
You know where that goes…endless spinning around What’s God’s will? and we’ll spend all our time discussing so we don’t ever get to the actual notion of obeying.
Here’s a different idea. What if we focused on God’s Way? Always. Everywhere. No matter what we’re doing.
God’s Way is obvious, right?
Grace
Forgiveness
Peacemaking
Healing
Hope
Sacrifice
Service
What if obedience is as simple as bringing Jesus’ way of living into whatever we do?
Observation #1: We could stop fussing about “what’s God’s will?” and get on with living in obedience.
Observation #2: Simple doesn’t equal easy. All of that fussing about “what’s God’s will?” is a lot easier than doing the simple acts of obedience.