I feel like among all of my frustrations this month, God is really teaching me a lesson. While it’s great that I am usually obedient to what God is calling me to or asking of me, where is my heart?
There was more than one occasion this month where I felt God telling me to do something and someone else spoke up first and felt led to do the same thing. This month, there was an opportunity to give a message at a clinic to sick patients. We were asked to pray about whether or not we felt led to bring the message. I felt that God had put it on my heart that He wanted me to bring a message about healing. I more or less argued with him a little bit because I didn’t want to do it, I felt like there were other more qualified candidates among our group (four teams, 26 people together) and that I was not confident enough to bring the message. After a bit of arguing with God, I agreed to do it. At the end of the prayer time, another team member spoke up right away saying she felt led to bring the message. So I sat back quietly and didn’t say anything. A little later in the day, we found out that we would not be going to the clinic after all because there weren’t any patients. While I should have been praising God that nobody was sick, I was instead frustrated with Him that He told me to do something and that someone else snatched up the opportunity first and then the opportunity vanished completely. In many ways, this incident went along with the feelings of uselessness that I had been having all month. I felt like with so people in our group of 26, that I was not needed, and that anything I could do that someone else could do better. I was discouraged. But, what God has been teaching me through this is a lesson on obedience.
God calls us to be obedient, but is that enough? The answer is NO. We are called to more. He wants obedience without procrastination, obedience without grumbling. He wants our obedience out of a willing heart, not after an argument or with feelings of obligation or resentment. Where is my heart? Where is your heart?
When I think about everyday life, how often do we ask or invite someone to do something and then they only come after a long discussion or an argument? They come to the event or do what was asked only after grumbling and because they feel obligated and they were talked into it. How does that make us feel? I know I personally would rather they not come at all if they are only coming because they are obligated. I feel like that is how it is with God. He calls us to do something, to take an opportunity that He has planned and designed for us, but it does not please Him when we are obedient out of obligation and not out of love and a willing heart.
I feel like this is a message that God was trying to teach me this month. There were opportunities that arose that I felt led to take, but after grumbling and arguing with him, and finally agreeing to be obedient, it was no longer available. God calls us to timely obedience and our relationship with Him is always focused on the heart.
