Dare to be radically obedient

Dare to be Radically Obedient

“Hold my hand… hold my hand… hold my hand!!” With huffs of exasperation, countless mothers and fathers have uttered these words as their children scamper about, not understanding why they can’t skip through a parking lot on their own or why they can’t run ahead on the sidewalk. It is easy to be pleased when children obey, but the flashes of rebellion in their eyes as they disobey pains the parent. However, they remain firm and discipline out of love with the hope that one day their children will finally understand the danger they were protected from.

A mortal parent’s relationship can be similar to the relationship the immortal God has with His children. When commanded to do something, oftentimes we hesitate, rationalize, or blatantly disobey. But we always have a choice about how to respond. We can either get so caught up in radically living our temporarily lives with the little understanding we have, or we can choose to radically obey and passionately follow God who understands everything. Noah was a prime example of this devoted acquiescence.

Surrounded by evil and corruptness, he walked with God and found favor in his sight. God gave Noah strange instructions: to build a massive ark with specific measurements, to load himself and his family and two of all living creatures into the ark, and to store in the ark every kind of food that was to be eaten by the humans and animals. God also told Noah that the earth and its evil inhabitants would be destroyed by floodwaters, but he and his family and the animals he loaded onto the ark would survive.

Can you imagine receiving instructions to build a huge ark whose residents would be the only living creatures on Earth to survive? Would you build the ark? Noah did! Persecution, pain, doubt, resentment, frustration, and impatience could have kept him from submitting to God’s will. But Noah radically obeyed. And God remained true to His promise. Noah and his family and the animals on the ark survived the fatal flood, and a beautiful example of submitting to God’s will was birthed from the experience.

We need to learn to put aside our selfish pride and personal desires and obey God with fervor.  He submitted to God’s will and an extraordinary event took place. Radical obedience. Noah had it, and so can we.

~Micaela Robinson
Christ Fellowship