We have verbally consented with our lips to go forward on the journey the Lord has asked us to begin walking. We have told Abba that we are willing and ready, whatever that looks like. What it looks like right now is day to day obedience, taking each day one at a time, for that is all we have instruction for at this time. So, each morning I get up, we get breakfast ready for four adults and 9 very hungry kids. We clean up breakfast, Mark goes to work, we work on school, color, watch signing time videos (we are learning sign language), we come together as a huge family of 13 and sing hymns and read the word of God together. It looks like taking each day as it comes and waiting with great expectation at all God is preparing for us to do.
I sometimes get weary in simply obeying, obeying often looks like a whole lot of work, especially when I don’t know when God is going to reveal his surprise for me. I know one is coming, I just don’t know when, and it’s a lot like waiting for the gift you have been longing for FOREVER! So, I get restless and within this restlessness for some reason it is harder for me to take every thought captive. Taking every thought captive is super important, because it is in the thought process that Satan starts attacking or at least that is how it is with me. It starts as a nagging thought about myself, then my heart joins in and says yeah maybe that is true, and before I know it that nasty thought is popping out of my mouth. For me the times of walking in obedience before God’s big surprise party of what the next phase looks like often just seems like a whole lot of work and not much to show for it. My mind starts wandering to the thought of, “is all this hoopla for nothing” and “what if God never comes through”. This phase is super important, it is important because God is using this time to teach me endurance, he is teaching me perseverance, and it is these times, especially these times when it is of utmost importance that the natural stubbornness God gave me needs to kick in. Because, it is at these times when I need to use my stubbornness to stand firm and say, “no matter how long it takes, whatever I need to do in this time of obedience, I will do it Abba, because you asked me, I will do it”!
I must abide closely to my Abba, I must make every effort to take every thought captive to what I know to be true of my compassionate Abba. The “I” factor is also an important concept to take out during the obedience process. Because on my own I cannot do anything, it is only through God the Father working through me and in me that I can do anything. During the obedience phase I sometimes feel like a work mule, pulling and pulling with all my strength, but stuck in the mud and not going anywhere. The problem is if I pull on my own strength I will belly flop in the mud and get stuck. Praise the Lord, Abba does not leave me in the mud hole, he comes and cleans me off, sometimes even with a chuckle under his breath and he whispers, “Oh, my stubborn weary child, didn’t you know I was here all the time”. Then just as one of my little’s would say, I find myself saying, “Sorry, I forgot”. Abba is so faithful to come get me, dust me off, and I begin once again to walk beside him in perfect peace.
I have been told I am brave, but I want you to know I am not brave, I am obedient. Honestly, I’m terrified because I know the things God could ask of my family could be hard and uncomfortable. I know Abba asks his children to do things that seem contrary and weird to those around them. But, I also know that whatever Abba asks I want to do, where ever he asks me to go I want to go, because anywhere outside of that is a lonely place I would not want to visit. I have been told that brave is doing something even though you are afraid. That would define me very well right now. Even though I am afraid, I also know I am in the most capable, the most safe, the most protected place I could be…in my Father’s hands.
Obedience has never been an easy thing for me to accomplish, being tenacious by birth makes it tricky indeed, but praise the Lord my parents hung in there in the training process and praise the Lord Abba sent others after them to train me in the way I should continue to go. So, in obedience I walk on, waiting for the next direction. Abba is faithful, we will be just fine!