i have been learning a lot lately about what it means to be obedient to God. today has been no different, except that He showed me something about myself...and he used my dogs to do it.
my two westies have extremely different personalities. tucker is very loving, fun, happy all the time, and typically very obedient. when i tell him to get in his crate, he runs willingly, never detours, and never makes me chase him around to get him to comply. rookie is the polar opposite. he is a little bit stingy with his love, can be a total snob, likes to make trouble, and "obedient" is not in his vocabulary (i guess he doesn't actually have a vocabulary since he's a dog, but you know what i mean...). he would rather do just about anything than get in the crate. when i tell him to get in, he hides under the bed, under the kitchen table, acts like he's going in and then quickly makes a move towards another room, etc. he'll do just about anything to not go into the crate.
today i saw a version of rookie that reminded me of how i must look to God sometimes. i asked him to get in the crate and he stood there looking at me for a few moments, as if consciously weighing his options. he was near the kitchen table and he glanced that way, wondering if he should make a break for it. i asked him again to get in the crate and he began walking towards the crate, very, very slowly, thinking about it with each step and looking at me the whole time to see if i was serious. when he got to the door of the laundry room, where we keep the crate, he took a couple of steps towards the guest bedroom, also very slowly, perhaps so i wouldn't notice. i asked him a third time to get in the crate. he gave me a long, pleading look and then dropped his head and walked in....halfway... he stopped with two feet in the crate and two feet out. i could almost hear him asking, "is this good enough?" i laughed out loud, gave him a kiss and a little push, and went on my way.
and that's when God said, "remind you of anyone?" i hadn't thought of it before, but how many times do i try to pull the same kind of stunts with Him? many times sin seems more attractive than doing what's right. or maybe God's way seems harder, or it doesn't make sense to us. then there are the times when we just flat-out refuse to do the obedient thing. whatever our reasons, we balk and stall and give God excuses in an effort to change His mind, to try and make Him see our point of view. we put two feet in the crate and keep two feet out and try to get away with it by asking, "is this good enough, God?"
well...God answers. and the answer is "no, it's not good enough." there is no such thing as good enough. God demands full obedience. anything short of that is disobedience. there isn't really any room for gray. there's a song by thousand foot krutch that says, "the trouble with truth is it never lies, the trouble with wrong is it's never right." that's such a good picture for me of what sin means to God, and it's convicting... as Christians sometimes we try to disguise our sin, saying it's "just the way i am". we blame our responses on the actions of other people. we do anything and everything we can to make our sin seem ok, so we don't have to be accountable to God or to ourselves. we say it feels good, others are doing it, whatever it takes to allow ourselves to continue being disobedient without facing the consequences. John addresses this in Revelation 3:16, saying that when we are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, God wants to spit us out of His mouth!! trying to walk the line between wrong and right is a sad, dangerous game. i've played it, and i've lost. there is no "middle ground" with sin. it's either sin, or it's God's way.
like my little westie, i have to consciously decide day-by-day, sometimes minute-by-minute, to walk, sometimes very slowly, very hesitantly, towards the right, towards God's light, and away from the wrong. and as rookie has found out, when he obeys willingly, when he doesn't make me chase him around the house, he is often rewarded with a treat. God's blessings are similar, though much more life-changing. His blessings are only found when we walk with Him. and the only way to walk with Him is to be obedient.
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