I used to hate the word “obey.”
I hated how it sounded; what it meant. When I was told to obey, it meant that I needed to fall in line, and conform. But I was a rebel. I listened to Green Day and The Ataris. “You can’t tell me to obey! Do you know how much teenage angst I have?” That was my general vibe growing up.
But looking back on that time in my life, that wasn’t when I struggled with obeying. Most nights, I was home by curfew. I didn’t drink until I was 21 and have not partaken in recreational drugs. Many nights, I remember falling asleep while reading the Bible. I would just open it up and start reading whatever page I opened to.
It was in my 20’s when I really wanted to be my own person that I started drifting around in my faith. (Drifting is just a nice way of saying lazy.)
I wasn’t praying as much. I was more focused on simple, knowledge of the Word instead of the personal, transformative relationship with Jesus. I was searching for other things to fill my life, and in several ways, I’m trying to fight against them still.
I had never really considered what it meant to obey Jesus.
Fast forward to April 2022.
That’s when my dad died.
At this point, I’m 32, have been married for four and a half years, and have a two-year-old daughter. I get that phone call that we all dread but somehow can’t seem to avoid and my family’s life was flipped upside down.
And then over the next few months, several more events happened in our lives that added to the trauma of living without my dad.
Life without my dad has been difficult. It’s tough knowing his grandkids are going to grow up and he won’t see it. He loved us all so much and I miss him every single day.
I don’t really want to get into those other events, but all the things that happened this year led my wife to book a trip to Destin, Florida.
Destin is beautiful and where we stayed was 200 yards from the softest-sand beach I’ve ever seen. It’s a 16-hour drive but our two-year-old handled it better than we could have asked her to.
We just needed to get out of town. We needed a break; this was a great time for us to try to heal together, focus on each other, and have fun together.
On our second morning of vacation, I made my customary morning cup of coffee and walked over to the beach to watch the sunrise.
I had my favorite hoodie on, I was listening to music, and had some of the best coffee on the planet. (Shoutout Reverie Roasters.)
I opened to the day’s devotional in My Utmost for His Highest and the verse was John 14:15.
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
…Obey.
The devotion’s author, Oswald Chambers, dives into what happens to a person when they obey Jesus: Thousands of lives are touched. You fulfill your spiritual destiny. Great stuff, but what stood out to me was when he wrote, “When you obey Jesus, the haphazard circumstances in your life become the pinholes through which you see the face of God.”
Jesus doesn’t call me to understand why my dad died. He calls me to obey, and I wasn’t doing that. I had been sulking, shaking my fist, and asking why these things had happened seemingly all at once. That devotional stopped me in my tracks. I want to see the face of God.
But how do I obey? What do I need to do? A beautiful, underrated aspect of the Bible is that we can have a face-to-face meeting with its author as often as we want.
I gave a short sermon for Immanuel Vietnamese Baptist Church and the main passage was Ephesians 4:25-32.
“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
This passage is basically saying be honest, don’t steal, be angry but don’t sin, work hard, be generous, forgive, and encourage others.
The passage lands in the “Renewal of Life” portion of Ephesians. I realized that I needed renewal. I needed to be refilled, and the Lord had a meeting with me through this passage.
He reminded me of that meeting on the beach in Florida and answered my question about what I needed to do to obey Him.
If we obey in doing these things, we show we love God. When we show we love Him, it renews us and we see the face of God. When we can see the face of God, we can face these haphazard circumstances with hope because we see that He has been with us the entire time.