The perks of obedience

Every day I struggle with putting aside my own wants for this or that to happen and my desire to make plans for the future. And most every day those things I think  I will do are things that God puts aside in order for me to do what He wants me to do.  

When the day is through, I recall what was done and say, “Thank you Lord for helping me do what You wanted done today.” And if I haven’t scratched and clawed for my way but instead in calm obedience done what was assigned for me, the day will have gone like clockwork. It is amazing.  When I give God what He wishes, my obedience, I not only live in peace but I truly gain my life.  

I recently came across a story written for a publication by a friend of my husband. This amazing woman, now in her late 60’s, chose to forsake all the world had to offer her when Jesus came to her and redirected her back to a calling she accepted when she was a young girl. Driving her car on the highway to somewhere, He came and she instantly fell “madly in love with the Lord”.

She immediately drove to her downtown office, resigned from a lucrative career as an executive secretary to one of the biggest television networks in the country.  In this, she gave up world travel, a boyfriend, and even a chance, at Steven Spielberg’s coaxing,  to be cast as the Bionic Woman in the late 1970’s show with the same name.  She gave it all up to become a hermit nun who prays daily over a mountain of prayer requests that come to a hermitage in southern Minnesota where she and a handful of other nuns live and pray.

I don’t list her accomplishments and opportunities to impress but to illustrate that one can have the world at her fingertips and still feel there is something missing. For her, giving up all the tinsel of Hollywood was easy because Jesus knocked her off her feet and assured her that there is something better and something far more important to live for: Him and the work of helping Him save countless souls.

Reading this story helps me stay focused. During my stay here I should not be focused on accumulating stuff, hoarding stuff, or saving stuff so that there’s plenty of it when I die.  I should not be focused on making a name for myself. And I should not strive to be like friends who seem to be able to turn everything into gold. 

These things to not bring peace and in them I do not gain my life.