As the author Peter Mayle declared
in his humorous book Toujours Provence,
“There are times when it is a relief and a pleasure to be told exactly what to
do,…”
Have you ever felt like saying that:
“Just tell me where to be, when to show up, and what to do?” That’s what I
reiterated to my son months prior to his wedding, and, more recently, just
before the big event.
Evidently I wasn’t the only one
desiring that type of direction. He told his father that was one technical
piece he and his intended neglected to foresee: having to give so many people
directions during the wedding week. Because of the need, he stayed up into the
wee hours one night to write up a rather formal email (complete with artistic
edge flourishes) to all of us principals, noting an hour-by-hour schedule of
where and when to arrive for the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, wedding day bridal
party pictures, the family and groom/bride pictures, the wedding, the
reception. We even got a schedule for the “First Look” experience pictures the
bride and groom would have taken, sans the family and bulk of the wedding party.
It took a moment of mental deliberation on my part to define what the “First
Look” was, but I finally got it. The bride’s father divulged that it took him
marrying two of his daughters before he was able to decipher it, and after a
hearty shared laugh about our 21st Century (millennial) wedding protocol
ignorance, I didn’t feel so brainless.
The final experience was grand.
Shear joy! Heart and brain exploded in a profound sense of freedom—to enjoy the
event without having to be in charge, direct, or make decisions. To be out of
control. Or, more precisely: to be out of
my control and left in the hands of others. My only responsibility was to
get myself properly coifed, attired and punctually transported to the scheduled
events, with no other burden to tote around than a light heart.
I felt free, and full of peace.
Now I know it isn’t comfortable or
even psychologically or physically beneficial to always have someone else dictate what you should do. Reams of
research show that people who work and live under the oppressive shroud of
constantly being dictated to are more depressed and saturated in hopelessness. So
being in control over your life, (or, more aptly, feeling like you do), is a
good thing.
But there is One person to whom you
should always submit, and that
submission will break bondage chains, unleash possibilities, and drench you in
a sense of freedom and peace. (I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.)
The person to whom you should always
submit is Jesus. Why? Because He knows you intimately, better than you know
yourself. He created you. He knows how you think, how you function, your
weaknesses and your strengths. He knows you inside and out, and He knows how to
protect you from yourself and from the world. Submitting to Him is always the
way to go. Always. But just exactly how do you do that? Volumes have been
written on how to know the will of God. It’s inevitably everyone’s most
pressing question. You can purchase those volumes to read up on what the
scholars say, but I’ll give you three steps you can take today to be victorious
in this area of submission and resulting peace.
Three Steps to Obedience
1. Your heart has got to want to submit.
Why do I say heart? Because it
always comes down to a heart issue. It all begins and ends there. People may
try to turn it into a brilliant intellectual argument, with themselves or
others, but invariably it’s really an issue about the heart. That’s one of the
reasons God says He’ll give us a new one when we make the decision to follow
Him. So it may be time to have a good, honest discussion with your heart. If
you keep your heart imprisoned and under protected lock and key, it may be a
knock down, drag out arguing match, but do it. (Trust me when I say that your
life depends on it.) When you’re ready to free your heart and release it to
God, and proclaim Him as the controller of it, then you can move on to Step 2.
2. Get to know Him.
And how do you do that? The same way
you got to know your friend, BFF, your bosom buddy, your bestie, your homey,
your wife, your husband. You spent—and spend—precious time with them, because
you want to! You—forgive me for using such a crass phrase—“hang out” with them.
You get to know them intimately, what makes them tick, what their likes and
dislikes are, what they expect of you as a friend and confidant. (There are
always expectations in a relationship, and they are usually love, sacrifice,
accountability, and reliability.) It takes a real friend to be a real friend.
And that’s not so far from the mark
when you talk about Jesus. Toward the end of his earthly life, he told his
disciples that He no longer considered them servants but friends. That’s a big relationship and game-changer. He pointed out
that servants don’t know what the master is doing, but friends do, because they
keep one another informed.
And that’s what God does: He keeps
you informed. The first and most important place the information is spelled out
for us is in Scripture. That’s where we need to start—His love letter to the
world. Letters are written to be read. Love letters get read once, twice,
three, a multitude of times. They’re kept carefully stashed away in special
containers and places. They’re sprinkled with tearstains; they get worn from being
grasped; they yellow with age. They’re creased and ragged from folding,
unfolding, and turning over. They sometimes have notes written in the margins.
Special passages and words are especially noted and underlined. If someone else
asks about them, the recipient can put their hands on those priceless letters
in a second and recount their lengthy prose by heart; show you exactly where
that message is written in one of the letters.
But getting to know someone that
intimately means taking time to do it. It means identifying time-wasters that
keep us from sitting down with Him. It means setting aside time to sit at His
feet, read His letter, know what it says, allow it to change your heart, and develop
a deeper understanding of God and a life-changing relationship with Him. In
reality, He should be your Best Friend. No one else measures up to the kind of
friend He can be to you.
My dad made a strong, memorable
point to me one day when I told him I didn’t have time to do something.
“Nonsense,” he retorted with a knowing smirk. A person always finds time to do
the things he wants to do.” Touché! How right he was. (Not always true when
you’re a stay-at-home-mother of toddlers, but you get the point.)
The self-inspecting question then
becomes: Do you want to do it?
It’s a question that’s been pecking
persistently at my mind and heart for a while, probably because for the last
several years I’ve been letting a little more of the world into my life,
compromising more, getting stained by all of it, and neglecting the finer
things He has to offer: like truth and life. I’ve been getting lazy with God and
have sometimes found myself masquerading as Jesus’ friend. Thankfully, He’s
always ready to re-ignite the friendship and forget how I’ve been lacking in
the relationship.
3. Close Your Ears and Eyes to the
World’s Wisdom (and stop repeating it)
Now here comes the hard part. We all have
got to stop listening to the world’s “wisdom.” Because usually it isn’t; and it
can set you quickly sailing down the wrong path without any method of turning
the boat around. Like an alcoholic who needs to radically change his social
scene and obtain a new set of friends (and abandon his old, drinking partners),
we need to protect our hearts, minds, ears and eyes. We need to flee lust and
sexual sin in all forms (including being a paying voyeur at a sex-saturated,
nudey movie), turn off the brain-deadening television, pay less attention to
our own social media, (and the social media of the rich and famous), and strive
to be pure of heart, pure of mind, and pure of body. Put it down, put it away,
and practice deliberate avoidance. Perfect, like our Father in heaven is
perfect.
Easy? No. But it’s certainly worth
striving for. And just think about how freeing it can be! To be as unencumbered
from the world as possible (this will be different depending on your job and
responsibilities) and more encumbered by being a friend of Jesus.
Knowing what He likes and doesn’t
like. Knowing how to deal with and live in the world and not be of it. Being
simultaneously shrewd and harmless. Being loving, kind, joyful, peaceful,
gentle, good, long suffering, patient, faithful,
and having self-control. Being obedient and actually enjoy having Him direct
and tell you where to go and what to do. While the world knows a little bit of
truth, and it can all sound so good to our itching ears, quite often the truth
is intertwined with a lot of lies that need to be ferreted out and squashed.
The more time you spend with Him,
the more natural and instinctive it will be. And you’ll know immediately when
you’ve erred and need to be forgiven. You’ll be ultra-sensitive to His desires
for your life.
Where are you now?
Where are you right now in these
three steps? Have you started them? Do you need a refresher course in them? Have
you gotten all of the way to Step 3, retreated, and now find yourself hovering
between steps 1 and 2, or 2 and 3?
Start by asking yourself some
honest, revealing questions, and then let Him hand you the life directions. The
world won’t like it, and you’re likely to get some backlash and heckling, but
hang in there. It really is nice having Him tell you where to go and what to
do.
You and your precious life are worth
it!
Next week we'll look further at being in control, with a focus on women, wives and mothers. See you then!
Next week we'll look further at being in control, with a focus on women, wives and mothers. See you then!
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Until next Monday, may your week be
full of blessings that you receive and give, your heart be full of joy and
thankfulness, and your days be filled with laughter! Build a little heaven in
your life right now, and watch your heavenly garden grow!
Blessings,
Andrea
When the eyes of
the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right
here on earth. ~ A. W. Tozer
