Partial Obedience is Disobedience ~

Obedience. – Raising children to obey is (was) hard. We were never those parents who counted…”I am going to count to 3 and if you don’t stop, you will be spanked”…what?... when we told our boys to do something, it didn’t mean later, or when they felt like it, certainly it didn’t mean – when we count to 3…we taught them that….delayed obedience, is disobedience, and I am so thankful that B&B are following suite and disciplining with love and consistency.

However, that doesn’t mean Brooklyn doesn’t try their patience…she is going on 3 now – so discipline it seems is an everyday occurrence. She is testing the waters with B&B on what she can get away with, or how far to step across that line. B&B are doing a great job at taking on this Godly challenge and raising Brooklyn and Gabriel in an atmosphere of grace, based upon the foundation of a relationship with Jesus Christ, they concentrate on building character instead of molding behavior.

So ….when God calls me to do something specific, how do I respond? I don’t raise my fist and yell…”I won’t do it”….instead, I usually struggle with the idea for a while. Sometimes I even argue a bit, telling Him all the reasons why it won’t work. Other times, I begin to doubt I heard correctly, or….do I run in the other direction completely like Jonah?

There is one other response that is often so subtle I don’t even recognize it as disobedience. Substituting my plan for Gods is a way to appear obedient, but yet avoiding doing what I don’t like…isn’t that how Saul responded to the divine command he’d been given? (1 Samuel 15)… In his eyes, saving a few animals to sacrifice to the Lord seemed like a better idea than God’s. Saul’s sin seemed obvious to me…but how often do I make similar substitutions?....God may be calling me to serve in a particular way, but because I’m afraid, I decide to serve in a less challenging way…. Saul was rejected as king because he failed to utterly destroy the Amalekites, instead choosing to keep the best of the best for himself and to sacrifice to God. But God didn't want his sacrifice, he wanted obedience.

God is calling me to live fully committed to Him. There is no way to improve on His plan for my life. If I try to alter it in any way…it can lead me to a powerless life and missed blessings…I don’t want to miss a thing …because partial obedience is disobedience.

“Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth” Deuteronomy 28:1