What my cat never learned

I was trying to train my cat once.  He never got it right.  Each time I did sit ups in the middle of the living room he would try to claw my arm flesh off.  Evidently I was crowding in on his run-of-the-entire-house-territory.  Even 30 minutes on 3 days a week was a great bother to him.  I tried to teach him to obey me, but he wasn't interested.  Instead I obeyed his cat-rules and just gave up.

My dog however would do anything for a leftover ham bone, or a poison mouse pellet.  She would learn to behave when she wanted either one of those.  She did behave, and was easy to train.  A very owner-compliant personality pet.  No, I didn't really feed her those pellets.

One pet practiced disobedience regularly the other sought to bring her best obedience each and every opportunity.  

Ever think about what obedience isn't?

Obedience not easy because it goes against our natures to behave.  We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it.  I use this way of thinking about sleeping in on a Saturday.  This drives our self-will.  This gets us our own way.  This can be selfish and self-serving.

So if it's so hard then why do we even try if we know we are going to mess up all the time?  There are days I wish I could talk to my cat about this.  He certainly didn't care about learning any new cat tricks or pleasing me.  My dog on the other hand would eagerly tell me why she obeys with such joy and obedience.  Her answer?  Because of that bone or treat that I promised her.  The rewards of what obedience brings was worth it cost her.

How do you obey God?  Do you obey Him to get what you want?

This faith journey is all about our obedience response back to God.  And if we were honest with ourselves, I think we know the right things to do and what our holy response should be, we just choose to think that it's not important to God.

I believe that obedience is the key to living in the center of God's will.  

I do know that obedience is not always easy, but the rewards are always worth it.  It's hard, especially when it requires you to follow God in uncertain places.  Equally hard when you only have a few pieces of life's puzzle pieces.  

Extraordinary moves of God begin with acts of obedience – Anonymous

If we say we love God then obedience will follow.  Even when we don't know what the immediate results are or what the outcome will be.  The fact that we are being obedient to what God is leading us to do is our reward.

What about when it doesn't make sense?  What about when you aren't sure what to do?  I have found that every time you ask God to reveal truth, He always will.  He never disappoints in the faith training department.   When we trust the Master and fully believe that He has everything under His control and wants what is best for us, isn't obedience just a little easier?

That's what I tried to teach my cat, he never got it.  He didn't trust me.  My dog, however, trusted me completely and would do anything to obey.  Over time her training was quite easy, she was willing to learn because her obedience brought great rewards.  My cat only got a little catnip reward once in a while at Christmas.

1 Peter 1:14 "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.  But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written:  "Be holy, because I am holy."

Our reward, our holy response comes with our hearts of obedience.