Mamas in Faith

I recently heard someone say, “My job is obedience, not to know all the outcomes”, that simple phrase has been repeating in my head like a song that you just cannot seem to shake.

My job is obedience.

My job is obedience.

My job is obedience.

I do not have control over the outcomes, but I do have control over my obedience.

When we think about obedience our mind probably goes one of two places first. One of them being an image of being obedient and what the looks like either from a parent perspective or what it looks like to have someone else being obedient to you. The second one… rebellion because the opposite of being obedient would be to be rebellious right?

With almost maximum certainty there will be days of rebellious behavior from our children. This is probably no surprise to any of us, but it can still be overwhelming, stressful, and a slew of other emotions.

Then it had me wondering what is obedience any??? Is rebellion really the reverse of the same coin as obedience?

According to the Holman Bible dictionary obedience means “To hear God’s Word and act accordingly. The word translated “obey” in the OT means “to hear” and is often so translated. In the NT several words describe obedience. One word means “to hear or to listen in a state of submission.” Another NT word often translated “obey” means “to trust.” When looking at these if we combine the Old Testament and New Testament we get to hear and trust in submission.

What about the word rebellion? The definition presented by Merriam-webster is “opposition to one in authority or dominance.”

So is rebellion really the opposite, I think I would actually disagree.

In both obedience AND rebellion there must be an understanding of what is being said or expected. Without the expectation being set you could not have true obedience or true rebellion.

Which makes me think about when Jesus was on the cross in the gospel of Luke he says “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34 CSB) Jesus is calling out to God asking for His forgiveness because it looks like rebellion, but it couldn’t be because they are unknowing of what they are doing. So, what can look and feel like rebellion to us could also be unknowing.

Let us go back to the idea of obedience, for the longest time I thought that there was only one way to hear from God. Bear with me for just a second because if you are anything like me you want to stop reading this and never read from me again in fear of reading or hearing something that is unbiblical or theologically crazy. I used to think that there was a voice that we could audibly hear from God. And that for some reason asking Jesus into my heart would let me have some kind of special access to be able to hear this audible voice of God.  Yes, writing that out feels silly even now because it honestly wasn’t that long ago that I thought I was missing out or doing something wrong because I wasn’t “hearing God” like everyone else.

Picture this with me now, you are in a room, door shut, and your let’s say your mom is on the other side of the house also in a room, but the door is open. She is willingly giving you instructions on how to be obedient for whatever it is that she wants you to do. But you have your door shut and you are only hearing bits and pieces that you want to hear. Your sibling also in the room hears and repeats some of what she says. But, neither one of you take the initiative to open the door in order to hear her fully. She gave you all the instructions on how to be obedient, but you didn’t open the door so you couldn’t hear her all the way.

Now think about how you are yearning to be obedient to what God is calling you to, I know you know this feeling, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this or reading this far. You desperately want to hear from Him, but you have the door shut, you listen to the bits and pieces in your devotional, what others post on social media, your favorite pastor and so on. But this is all second hand someone else is telling you these things, and sometimes the context of how it is being presented is wrong.

Hearing from God doesn’t always come as an audible voice, it doesn’t always come as a pulling on your heart it doesn’t always come from anything happening around you. There is one way you can hear from Him that you can be certain it is Him. That is by reading your Bible.

Now what does any of that have to do with being obedient and not needing to know or have control over outcomes???

If you are yearning to be obedient to God and what He is calling you to do the best next step is to actually read His words, open your Bible and have that connection. Will it all make perfect sense the first time you read it through, for some of us no it wont. But the more obedient you are in reading it and taking the time to understand the more clearly you will hear Gods voice in the text.

We were never made to know everything, but as Christians we know that there is someone who does know everything. It is not our job to know all the outcomes but what we can do is be obedient and take steps in faith.