A neighbor up the street added a new puppy–a cockapoo–to their family. She trained their pup to ring a bell when it needed to go to the bathroom. At first they positioned its paw or its nose to help it ring the bell at the door whenever it needed to go out. Eventually it learned to communicate all by itself. Once outside, the neighbor would say, “Get busy!”—a signal for the dog to do its business. When describing her training feat to one of their sons, she reached the part about telling the dog to “get busy,” and the pup overheard her, dropped its bottom and relieved itself right there on the floor! Smiling, she told me their new dog was very smart. “And,” I added, “obedient!”
Wouldn’t it be nice if children listened that closely and were that responsive to parental instructions? When our boys were little, perhaps four to six years old, we had a large schefflera tree in our back yard. That tree’s leaves cluster together at the end of a long stem. One of our sons took it upon himself to reprimand his brother, chasing him around the yard with one of those schefflera branches, on each corrective downstroke yelling, “Obey! Obey!”
The schefflera branch was our younger son’s creative idea, but we did our best to train our kids to be obedient. It was key to preserving some sense of order in the home. Rearing children to become responsible adults means not allowing them to just do whatever they please. There are many important things in life we may never “feel like” doing!
As a loving Father, God knows that, too. His Word is packed with wisdom to follow in daily life and is also the means by which He corrects us when we get off track (Psalm 19:7-8, Prov. 6:23, John 17:17, 2 Timothy 3:16-17). God cares about obedience. Through the prophet Samuel, He corrected King Saul, telling him, “Obedience is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). In that situation, God had given Saul specific instructions, which he only obeyed in part, rationalizing away his infraction. As we used to tell our children, “Partial obedience is disobedience.” We also told them to not delay their obedience, saying, “The time to obey is right away.”
Believers today are not under a long list of laws to obey as were those living under the Old Covenant because we are under grace. However, Jesus modeled obedience for us and gave us a new commandment: to love one another (Philippians 2:8, John 13:34-35). We find in the Word many ways to do that, and the Holy Spirit can show us what love looks like in each situation. God also tells us to walk according to the Spirit and not the flesh, and to be doers of the Word not merely hearers (Galatians 5:16, James 1:22). When we cultivate a close relationship with Him and learn how much He loves us, we will obey out of love rather than fear. Is there anything He’s told you to do that’s been left undone? May we be ever attentive to His voice, and seek to obey not only fully, but promptly.
