Chapter 2
Obedience: The Ugly Duckling of Christian Values

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to get into a series of messages on the life of David than it is to find yourself attracted to a series of studies on Moses? We have a problem with people like Moses simply because he is so boringly consistent.

When Anne of Green Gables was discussing with Merilla the upcoming marriage of her best friend Diana Berry to roly poly Fred Wright, Anne's complaint was that Fred was so "good". Shocked, Merilla said, "And so he should be." Merilla then went on to ask, "Would you want him to be bad?" "Well, not really bad," Anne admitted, but she went on to say she would like him to be able to be bad, but simply not actually do any evil.

There is a mystique about people who have a mischievous air lingering around them. Those who never deviate, nor show potential for wandering from the right way threaten us, they are boring, and we wish away from their company. Hence we prefer David to Moses. With David, you never knew what he would do next. He was unpredictable, glorious one moment and a disaster the next.

Victorious or virtuous
Another way Christians demonstrate an aversion to this matter of obedience in the Christian life is the interesting manner in which they describe the "successful" and the "unsuccessful" Christian by using the terms victorious and defeated. Someone who is being "successful" in the Christian life is described as "victorious". This term does have some marginal biblical warrant and therefore it is difficult to simply dismiss it totally from our vocabulary. But the more customary biblical way to describe the Christian is with the term "obedient".

You see, the term "victorious" is far more glamorous, it sparkles, it has sizzle, and it subtly exalts the Christian as some kind of spiritual hero for winning battles in the Christian warfare. The inherent danger with using the victorious vocabulary is that it is an ego feeder, it stimulates spiritual pride. Obedience, which is far more biblically justified as a term, is a flat, uninteresting, and uninviting description of the Christian life by comparison. And, in our age of advanced marketing techniques, we seem to know more than the Bible about how to "peddle" the Christian life because of our preference for terms the Bible uses infrequently and our neglect of terms the Bible uses often.

Defeated or defiant
On the other side of the coin, we often speak of the "defeated" Christian life rather than the "defiant" Christian life. Again, we are seeking to make life easier for modern Christians. To call the "defeated" life "defiant", is an insult to the sinner, it bruises the ego, it puts us down, it's negative, it puts the blame on us. We want to be upbeat all the time and make life "easy" for ourselves. So we employ euphemisms to disguise the realities of the situation. Only when we become honest and regard sin as despicable, disgusting, and filthy in God's eyes, will we be able to move ahead in life to the glory of God.

The first thing to do
Abraham's first great step forward in dealing with tragedy is to obey. He got up early in the morning and prepared to go and do the Lord's bidding. On one hand it would be easy for Abraham to get up early that particular morning, it's likely he never slept all night. What thoughts tumbled through his mind is anyone's guess, but certainly they revolved around the dreadful realities of Isaac's future, or rather, lack of a future.
We can only speculate on the struggle that went on inside Abraham as he started to move towards the place where he was to take his son's life.

While the New Testament indicates that Abraham did come to believe that God was able to raise the dead, we are not told when he came to that realization in the course of the whole process. Was it during the long, restless night before the trek began? Did he come to understand about the possibility of a resurrection when they were in the process of traveling to the mountain? We don't know, we can only guess. Evidently he decided that God could do this by the time he arrived at the base of the mountain, for he told his men that he and the lad would go and worship and they would both come back to them. He apparently understood that the boy would be resurrected the same day he died.

Disobedience comes naturally to the wounded
But Abraham obeyed. That is the important issue, because for many who dislike God's providence, there is a general distrust of God. The person realizes that God could have prevented the tragic situation from occurring but did not. Hence the desire to rebel against Him can almost overwhelm the wounded person. It's sort of an "I'll show Him!" attitude the person has towards the Lord. We need to recognize that it is very easy to get into such a rebellious state following the experience of a tragedy. This is a most common response.
There is a difference between recognizing a common or frequent reaction to adversity and approval of such reactions. We do not approve of people being rebellious against God, but we do know that it is a very frequent way sinners react to adversity in their lives. This is one of several ways Abraham stands out from the crowd. He might have wished to disobey and run in the opposite direction, but he resisted the temptation and did the right thing.

Gentle encouragement to obey
For those who are alongside the wounded, recognize them for what they are, i.e. wounded. They are people who have been decimated in life and scramble even to think in a straight line. They need to be handled with gentleness and tender comments. Allow them to say things that are inappropriate in the first moments of shock. If they say, "I do not believe this is happening to me!" do not demand that they face the brutal reality an hour after they have learned about its presence.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus, as recorded in Luke 24, appear to be rude to our Lord. They abruptly ask Him how it was that He could be in Jerusalem and be the only person there who did not know the great topic of conversation by everyone that weekend. They were shocked by His apparent ignorance. Instead of responding in kind, our Lord gently coaxes them to tell Him the problem. So it is with those who have just been devastated by shocking news. We should let them talk without interruption. They need to restate the terrible reality to a sympathetic listener as they struggle to believe the bad news themselves.

Quiet compassionate affirmation of the seriousness of the difficulty will do much to assist the person in coming to terms with the issue that causes the pain. Yet, so often, we feel a desperate urge to quote Romans 8:28 to the person and believe that will solve the problem for them. Such a comment is not unlike the doctor who is called at 2:00 a.m. by a patient with a complaint and he says, "Take two aspirins and if the pain does not go away, call me in the morning." Romans 8:28 is a wonderful verse given in the right context just as aspirin is an amazing medication when used properly. But a flippant quotation by a thoughtless counselor is almost as difficult to bear as the disease.

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