NEVER easy - but worthwhile

But the Lord has always loved his followers, and he will continue to love them forever and ever! He will be good to all their descendants, to those who are faithful to his agreement and who remember to obey his commands. (Psalm 103:17-18)

God's part - love us. Our part - obey him. Seems pretty easy, but it has presented more challenges for God's people down through the ages that we can shake a stick at! Why is obedience so hard? If we really want to be obedient to ALL that God asks of us, not just the 'easy stuff', then we need to understand obedience is a struggle of the will. Pride gets all balled up in the mess, as well. We want things to go the easiest way possible, don't we? Whenever something doesn't quite go as we hoped, do we bail? Do we double-down and put extra effort into it? Most of us find ourselves facing the difficulties of obedience with a bit of prideful will - we want it our way, but our way isn't always God's way.

I am so glad God's action of loving us isn't based upon our performance or the speed at which we 'come around' to doing things the way he asks us to do them! If it was, we'd all be doomed. God loved when not even one of us deserved that love. In fact, nothing we 'do' makes God love us anymore than he already does. The steps toward total obedience require us to look at the commitment required at each 'level' and weigh out if we are willing to do whatever is required. For me, God's requirement was that I lay down some things and then do some others. I didn't realize how much some of the things I was 'doing' were actually moving me further into compromise in my life. 

When he asked me to stop engaging in those activities or actions, he also asked me to begin others that I wasn't all that comfortable with. Sometimes God asks us to do things that are 'foreign' to us, like spend time in his Word, actually reading it, taking it in, journaling about what we have read, beginning to feed upon it ourselves instead of always being 'hand-fed' by someone else who has digested it for us. He may ask us to step into areas of ministry that we might not have seen as 'our calling' in life, such as working in the church nursery during one church service and attend a different service time in order that mothers and fathers can attend without the struggle of taking care of a wee one's needs.

God may ask us to begin to talk with each other about things that have been hard for us to deal with, such as relationship issues that have brought rifts or less than close feelings for each other. Being open to doing what he tells us to do when we don't think we have done anything to cause the rift is one of the hardest things. Why? Pride gets in the way of us seeing the value of the relationship over the 'value' of holding onto the wrongdoing or hurtful actions of another. Obedience is almost NEVER easy, but it comes with some of the greatest blessings we could ever want - especially the one that starts and ends with being loved by God! Obedience starts 'in God's love' and it ends 'in God's love'. We lay down our will because we are loved by him - we take up his will because we want to show our love in return. Just sayin!