duty v. obedience

I was just reading over some of the most recent entries here and thinking, "I wrote that?" I wonder how much Ghost-writing might really be going on. . . I don't know, but it's nice to go back and look and say, "Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense- why didn't I remember that? Why aren't I applying that to my life?"

Anyway.

I was reading my devotional and two statements caught my eye: "We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down than we do, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our common-sense decisions and ask God to bless them." (emphasis mine)
And: "When we do anything from a sense of duty, we can back it up by argument; when we do anything in obedience to the Lord, there is no argument possible; that is why a saint can easily be ridiculed."

The first statement describes what often becomes at least a part of many people's prayer lives (myself included- no judgment here). We go about doing life, and then when we decide things are going crazy or not working out, we ask God to step in on our behalf to fix everything. If we would just keep Him involved throughout the process, there would be no need for "emergency prayers" for the daily activities we participate in (obviously things happen in life, and there are curve balls, and there are many moments we need intervention from God, but what I'm talking about here are the daily tasks, job activities, family time, etc.). Or worse, we fool ourselves to think that because we have "prayed" about it, it must be blessed, because clearly it's part of God's plan. What's really happening is that we are deciding to do things in our own power and treating God as more of an overseer rather than the supplying power. Maybe He has blessed you with a specific position/job placement, but just because you are doing some work there doesn't mean that you are doing His work there. I know I struggle with that.

But it's the second statement that strikes me harder. I am a very logical/analytical person (clearly, if you've read anything here). Nearly everything I do, I do for a specific reason, and usually it's something that has been thought out and makes sense, at least to me. There really is a method to my madness, although often times I think it just comes off as madness and people fail to see the process behind it. Anyway, I wonder to myself how much of what I do is really off of strict obedience to God (which in truth is a rational motivation to an action) and how much is motivated by that sense of duty (a quick aside- duty (origin with "due", meaning "to owe", and related to "debt") is something done out of obligation, be it personal, moral, legal, occupational, whatever. I generally think of the military when I hear the word "duty"). One could argue that we "owe" God a lot; everything, in fact! Our lives should be a living sacrifice, right? But that's not what He requires. In fact, we can't even achieve that on our own, but we don't have to. God wants us to understand our sin problem, to see the only solution through the death of Jesus, and to realize that life is about knowing Him better and making Him known to others. Sometimes I feel like there's too much pressure to try and become the "perfect Christian" and know a bunch of Bible verses and do and say the right things all the time, and yet sometimes I also feel like there's not nearly enough emphasis on those things, and neither of them are really a good way of looking at life. What I'm finding and figuring out is that it's about finding and figuring things out. It's a process- not a ladder. It's not about achieving specific levels or reaching different steps but more about figuring out God's will and chasing after it with everything. Sounds so simple, and yet here we are, making rules for ourselves, fearing what comes next, unwilling to step out and be different, and ultimately finding that duty leaves us empty, but obedience always fills us. Duty tells us we have to get it right or we have failed. Obedience tells us that we will make every effort to do right, and if we mess up, we will try again. Duty sets time limits on a task-based to-do list, allowing us to check off the things we have to do. Obedience is a natural and immediate reaction to life and everything that comes at us. Duty is planned. Obedience is (dare I say?) spontaneous.


The comforting thought out of all of this? I do not always have to be able to explain why I want to do what I do. I spend so much time trying to reason out everything. . . I just need to let the rationalizing go and just DO.

So that's my goal for the week.