Thought for Wednesday November 21st

November 21, 2012

Blind Obedience

“Obedience is the mother of success, and is wedded to safety.”

-       Thomas a Kempis

But I have gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people.  Walk in all the way s I command you, that it may go well with you.

Jeremiah 7:23

Have you ever wondered, as have I, why as children we are so predisposed towards blind obedience to the sometimes foolish directives of our peers when we had a seeming deference to all other forms of authoritative demands?

Who among us has not been asked that age old question, ‘If  Bob or Sue asked you to jump off a bridge would you’ when it comes to the things we have tried to justify because Bobby did it or Susie tried it, or the biggest challenge of all, especially for boys, they dared me too?

Yet when it comes to obedience, as Christians we seem to loose or proclivity for daring and our simplicity of trust that we won’t get hurt when it comes to the things we are willing to do.

I’m sure God would never ask us to jump of a bridge, at least not literally: but often He does ask us to do so figuratively speaking.  He asks us to jump into unknown waters, where there is no familiarity, no comfort and we don’t know what obstacles or threats might be lurking just under the surface: and how many times do we opt out of taking the dive?

Sometimes God calls on us to engage in uncomfortable situations where there is the potential for us to not be within our comfort zones: and sadly more often than not we make excuses and find reasons to avoid accepting His challenge.

Maybe that is why the Kingdom of God needs to be embraced in child-like faith, with simplicity of mind, when our only real objective is to please and be accepted.

If we could but learn to embrace the things God asks us to do with the same enthusiasm and energy that we often embraced those challenges from our childhood: imagine what we might be able to accomplish.

What God really wants from us is blind obedience.  After all doesn’t faith require us to accept what we cannot see and believe what we may not understand?

Today’s Prayer

Father, may I be blinded by faith and free of insecurity and doubt when it comes to being obedient to you.

“There is a candle in every soul

Some brightly burning, some dark and cold

There is a Spirit, who brings a fire

Ignites a candle and makes His home.

Frustrated brother see how he’s tired to

light his own candle some other way.

See now your sister she’s been robbed and lied to

Still holds a candle without a flame.

So carry your candle, run to the darkness

Seek out the lonely, the tired and worn.

Hold out your candle for all to see it,

Take your candle, go light your world.“

-  Lyrics from ‘Go Light Your World’ by Chris Rice