Obedience

Now that word: obedience.  It is a much stronger word than it appears. Those nine letters mean so much, especially to my spiritual health.  Jeremiah, a prophet of old testament Israel was a great man. I read about all the ways he stood for Gods word and was crushed by the people of Israel.  He truly persevered in a time that it was not such a good thing, socially, to be him. More than a few times he has to flee for his life, get beaten up by people who are supposed to care for him and prophesy the Word of God, though it went against what would please his listeners.  It surely did not help that many other prophets were around prophesying some easy-listening to their crowds.  Jeremiah's prophesies were often things that the Israelites most definitely did not want to hear.  He prophesied about lengthy occupation by the Babylonians as well as multiple full scale destructions of Jerusalem.  He was feared and abused for that. God continued to speak through him, as hard as it made his life.  At one point, Jeremiah is arrested and falsely accused of deserting to the Babylonians.  He is beaten and locked up.  The king sends for him and asks what the Lord has to say and, in obedience, Jeremiah tells him again that Israel will be handed over to the Babylonians. This is not good news to the king. He is upset but Jeremiah has done nothing wrong and he asks the king to save his life. And the king does it, providing Jeremiah with a better living arrangement and bread each day "until all the bread in the city is gone" (Jeremiah 37:21).  Jeremiah is obedient. He does as God commands him.  His news is so incredibly against the desired outcomes of the people but he shares it anyway, no matter the cost. He is obedient here. And God provides for him. He perseveres the pain and suffering and God gives him rest and security.  It was not an easy time to be obedient, but he did it. I have so much left to learn about obedience. I spend so much time asking God to reveal things to me and then what do I do? More times than not, I am not a fan of what is required of me and do something different while sacrificing something else as if it makes up for it.  Pastor Jamie said this weekend that obedience is better than sacrifice. When I chose to sacrifice something else in a last stitch effort to make up for slack of obedience, I do not give God the opportunity to work through me or to show me His faithfulness. If I trust God to carry me through situations that I get into out of disobedience, then why shouldn't I trust Him to be even more faithful in carrying me through obedience?