To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice

God has stretched my faith this summer in an unexpected way.  I was not looking to find another job, but a teaching position was open at the school that Ella will attend this fall.  If you have read my blog for long or know me well, you know that a) I didn't want to go back to work in the first place, b) I had dreamed of homeschooling Ella forever, and c) I thought I was done with teaching for good, at least in the classroom setting.  Despite my best efforts to keep things the way I wanted them, God has had other plans for me.  He sent me back to work with my husband this past year, sent Ella to a school where things were very difficult for her, helped us find this new school, then dropped this job opening in my lap.

I did my best to ignore His leading to apply for the job, with my fingers in my ears, singing, "Lalalala, I can't hear you, God!".  Through friends and family, God began to open my heart to the idea.  He would not relent until I filled out the application.  Filled with fear and doubt, I dropped it off at the school, praying that God would give me the strength to do this job, if indeed that was His plan.  I was called for an interview that same week.  Nerves threatened to eat at me, but God filled me with His resolve.  He even prompted a wonderful pastor friend of ours to call us on the morning before the interview.  This godly man prayed that I would shine with the glory of God and that I would get the job.  I have never seen a prayer of this man's go unanswered, so I went into the interview feeling good.  The interview went very well - much better than I ever could have hoped, seeing that it had been 11 years since my last interview!  I was told that I would find out if I had gotten the job around July 15.  I prayed.  Friends and family prayed.  God had pushed me to do this, surely I would get the job.  I had faith that even though I hadn't been in the classroom since 2002, God would equip me for this work.  My creative juices began flowing like they hadn't in a while.  I had several dreams that seemed to point towards me teaching at this particular school.  Every circumstance suggested that the job would most likely be mine.

Today I got the call that the school had hired someone else.  I felt momentarily crushed!  Why had God built this dream back up in my heart, just to tear it down?  Right now, I really have no answer to that question.  But God has given me peace.  I know that He called me to obey and I did.  The words of my pastor friend ring in my mind as I sort through my feelings about this situation.  In describing the work he had been doing recently, he said, "All I try to do is be obedient and do what God tells me to do."  Whether that be to get down on his knees in the middle of an airport with friends who were travelling overseas, or pray over a former addict's infertile wife, or fly to Africa, or sit in a hospital room with a girl he didn't know who had just had major back surgery.  He was just doing what God told him to do.  And, that is how I want to live my life.  Daily.  Just doing what God says.  Period. 

As I have been reading the Bible in 90 Days, along with many others through Mom's Toolbox, I have learned so much about simple obedience.  Many people read the Old Testament and get bogged down by all the rules.  At first glance it does seem that God is enforcing an unrealistic set of expectations.  But, if you dig a bit deeper, you find something more.  You find a God that desires obedience over sacrifice.  Though the blood and bread offerings were said to be a sweet aroma to the LORD, what He wanted more was for His people to listen to Him.  To do what He asked them to do.  1 Samuel 15:22 says, "'Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.'"  In Leviticus, Aaron and his sons, had been given very specific instructions on how to make these offerings for the sins of their people.  Much of this book consists of the laws the Israelites were to obey.  If they did not obey, they had to bring an offering to atone for their sins.  But what God really wanted was for them to follow Him - not so that they could get check marks on a chart of rigid rules, but because He was the God Who had delivered them!  

Ever since the first sin of Adam and Eve, God had been seeking men, women, and children who would just listen to Him.  Trust Him.  Obey Him.  Because He is God.  He is Sovereign.  He is "I AM."  Sometimes being obedient is more important than the actual task God is asking you to do.  In my case, there was no end result to my obedience in my eyes.  I was not rewarded by the world's standards.  But, I trust that God has His reasons.  Though Moses never got to see the Promised Land, God used him to show us that the obedient ones are those that get to see His Glory.  And that means more to me than any job ever will.

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Show Me Your Glory, Third Day

Giving Up My Right to Vote

In my recent resolve to be obedient to God in whatever He asks of me, I have found myself becoming a bit unsettled.  Maybe even disenfranchised. 

In striving to do take these baby steps of obedience, I must will myself to give up my vote.  To give up what I had once considered my "legal right". 

Prior to bowing the knee to Christ, and allowing Him to dictate my walk, I had convinced myself that I am in charge.  Me, me, me!  Now that the right to my life is gone, my flesh is going crazy.  I totally understand what Paul says in Romans 7.

The flesh wars against the Spirit.  It is a daily battle.  Make that hourly.  No, better make that second by second.

Obedience is hard, difficult work.  It goes against every natural tendency of my body, mind, and soul. 

Those who know me well know that I am stubborn to the core.  My parents always thought I would make a great lawyer (just like Dad) because of my determination to argue my point into the ground.  Leave it to God to give me a daughter who is every bit as willful and obstinate as I am...possibly more.  Great sense of humor, God!

Ella has entered a phase in which she wants to do the exact opposite of whatever her dad or I tell her to do.  She is testing her limits and trying to find out who she is.  She wants to do things her way.  Though I completely empathize with her, it is my job as her mother to point her towards obedience.  Because, whether she wants to believe it or not, I have nothing but the best in mind for her.  I want her to learn certain lessons now so that she doesn't have to endure harder lessons later in life.  My goal is not to make her life miserable.  It is to point her in the right direction.  To make her path easier.  To  shelter her from unnecessary pain.  She can't see that right now.  All she sees is that I am making her do things she does not want to do.  And she is fighting back.  She is resisting my authority over her.  She is making her life more complicated and difficult than it has to be.  See, if she would just walk in my rules and the plan I set out for her, her days would be peaceful (and so would mine!).  If she would just submit her will to mine, her life would be so much better. 

Isn't it just like God to put people in our lives that remind us of ourselves to force us to look deeper into our own hearts?  God, in His infinite wisdom, blessed me with this child (whom I love more than life) so that I could have a firsthand view into the way I treat Him.  To Him, I am that ornery child, pushing against His Will for my life.  I fight back against His loving hand that longs to make my way easy and my burdens light.  You see, when I am not in control and I allow Him to rule my daily life, the burden is lifted off of me. 

Of course, obedience to God does not mean that everything is coming up roses.  It is a tough road.  Loneliness sets in at times.  I see others getting their way and I wish I could take back the reins over my life.  Just like a child, I whine to God,

"But, Jane Doe gets to do (fill in the blank with whatever it is that I wish I were doing other than what God had told me to do) ____________.  Why can't I have that kind of ministry??"

Then, Jesus says to me, "'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'" (Matt. 16:24)  And, I have to follow Him.  I have to leave my own desires and "rights" behind.  I have to fall in step with Him.  To me, there really is no other choice.

Here is what A.W. Tozer says on submission to God (taken from The Divine Conquest, Chapter 10 - The Spirit-filled Life):

If the Spirit takes charge of your life He will expect unquestioning obedience in everything. He will not tolerate in you the self-sins even though they are permitted and excused by most Christians. By the self-sins I mean self-love, self-pity, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement, self-defense. You will find the Spirit to be in sharp opposition to the easy ways of the world and of the mixed multitude within the precincts of religion. He will be jealous over you for good. He will not allow you to boast or swagger or show off. He will take the direction of your life away from you. He will reserve the right to test you, to discipline you, to chasten you for your soul's sake. He may strip you of many of those borderline pleasures that other Christians enjoy but that are to you a source of refined evil. Through it all He will enfold you in a love so vast, so mighty, so all-embracing, so wondrous that your very losses will seem like gains and your small pains like pleasures. Yet the flesh will whimper under His yoke and cry out against it as a burden too great to bear. And you will be permitted to enjoy the solemn privilege of suffering to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in your flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church. Now, with the conditions before you, do you still want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?"

If this appears severe, let us remember that the way of the cross is never easy. The shine and glamour accompanying popular religious movements is as false as the sheen on the wings of the angel of darkness when he for a moment transforms himself into an angel of light. The spiritual timidity that fears to show the cross in its true character is not on any grounds to be excused. It can result only in disappointment and tragedy at last.

Dear friend, if you are struggling with this issue of obedience, let me encourage you.  I can honestly tell you that though it is difficult, it is the road to peace.  Once you submit your will to God, He can do in and through you things you never thought possible.  Come to Him, broken ones.  Give Him your life.  He is worth it.