The Want in Obedience

I have a seriously crazy imagination.  I have hour long conversations in my head with people. With myself.  (No one ever talks back, don't worry) When something doesn't go my way, I re-imagine it, all working out just the way I want it to. When I was a little kid, I remember spending the entire bus ride home from school imagining.  I lived in Foster, RI (population 57)  until I was 12, so even though there were only 20 kids who went to my school, I still had an hour or so on the bus to imagine what getting home that day would be like.  Sometimes the kitchen would be clean.  Sometimes my dad would be there.  Sometimes the cows from next door would have trampled the house and everything would be destroyed.  This last scenario was actually a possibility.

I form ridiculous relationships with tv characters.  Not the actors from tv shows, who are at least real live people, but the characters.  I once told my sister that I was going to change my facebook relationship status to "in a relationship" because I'd never find a man like Booth from "Bones" anyways.  As if a relationship isn't real until it's posted on facebook.  As if I actually have a relationship with a fake person from tv.  Issues, Issues.  I realize I may be taking my desire to be transparent and authentic a bit too far here, but for real, the man is perfect. 

Along with this crazy imagination comes the ability to read anything into anything. I can't tell you how many fights I have been in because someone didn't text me back. I wasn't mad at them, but I was absolutely convinced they were mad at me for some unknown reason. I actually used to get texts from people that said, "if I don't text you back, we are not in a fight, I do not hate you, my battery is dying." I can take a sweet word, or a too short response and plan the rest of my life around it. Thankfully, my heart and mind have grown up since those days, and I don't too often tend to let myself freak out anymore.

All this being said, I'm not sure how I can read stories from the Bible, and not see past what is written.

I'm not sure how I can read about Abraham leaving his family and home for an unknown place, and think it was no big deal for him. (Gen 12)

I'm not sure how I can read about Sarah waiting until she was 90 to have her first child, and think she just accepted this patiently. We know she laughed, but what did she feel?  (Gen 18)

I'm not sure how I read about Joseph being sold into slavery by his own brothers, and think he just waited for the Lord to use evil for good. (Gen 37)

I'm not sure how I can read about Esther setting her fear aside to ask for an audience with the king, and assume her only thought was "if I perish, I perish." (Esther 4:16)

I don't know how I can read about Jonah....actually, I can relate to Jonah!

For the most part, I like the fact that I can read the Bible and take God's Word at face value.  This is what He said.  This is what He wants me to know. Sometimes figuring out why He wanted me to know it is a bit more challenging, but at least I've got a starting point.

But then I read stories about the patriarchs of our faith, and I think that obeying the big, sometimes strange, always hard requests of God was just no big deal to them.  And I look at my own life, and wonder why I can't obey the little, regular, somewhat easy things that God asks of me. Not to mention the big things. The things that change lives. The scary things.

Did Abraham question God before he left his home without a second glance? 

Did he shed a tear or two when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac?

Did he seek solace in a sheepskin of wine before confiding in an old friend what he would have to do?

Is it enough that he wanted to obey God, and did?  Or does God require us to want to do what he asks?

There are times that I want to obey God, and doing what he asks brings joy and peace and comfort to my heart.  Feeding the poor, caring for orphans. That I can do. There are other times when I want to obey God, but the task itself feels like a chore and I kinda hate it.  I do it, but I don't want to that particular thing.

It's times like these, facing the things I don't want to have to do, that I wish we got a little more of the story.

I'm not sure if I would be able to relate to Abraham's story.  I don't know if being on this earth "for such a time as this" brought Esther comfort, but I find that sometimes it brings me comfort, and sometimes it makes me mad. I don't know how patient Sarah was able to be, but babies are ridiculously cute, and I wouldn't want to be waiting 90 (or even 30) years on God to provide me with one. Especially when the mark of womanhood in her day was bearing children. But we didn't get those stories. We don't get the fears and struggles. We don't get the questions and tears.

We got the story of Jonah.  And I relate.  He ran from God's command, put others around him in harm's way when the Lord sent down a nasty storm to the ship he was hiding out on. He got eaten by a whale. He got thrown up by a whale. Ew. He decides, finally, to do what God has asked of him, and when the people of Nineveh change their evil ways, Jonah gets mad at the Lord's compassion for them.

Oh how I relate.  Oh how I wish I didn't. I don't want to run from God. I don't want to put others in harm's way because of my own personal feelings. I do not want to get eaten by a whale, or whatever teaching tool God might choose to use in this day and age, with me.  And when I finally smarten up and decide to do what God asks of me, I don't want to be angry and judgmental about the results.

God says to Jonah after he pitches a fit over God's compassion for the Ninevites, "Have you any right to be angry?"  (Jonah 4:4) He spends quite a few chapters essentially asking Job "Who are you, compared to me?" (Job 38-41) We don't get to decide what God asks of us. We don't get to decide where He shows His compassion and mercy.

The sins of the Ninevites were not against Jonah. They were against God.

God had compassion on Jonah when he ran from Him. He had compassion when the others on the ship tossed him overboard to save themselves.  Jonah could have been smited on the spot for refusing or avoiding God's command. But God was compassionate. He is compassionate.

I don't want to be mad at God for having compassion on others, for giving them another chance to change their ways.  Not after all the chances He's given me. If He chooses to use me, even when I wish He wouldn't, I don't want to miss out on why He's using me.  I don't want to miss the changes it could bring to me, the blessings.

I have no way to wrap this up.... my question still stands.  Is it enough to obey God, even when we don't want to do what He's asked of us? Is it enough to do it, without understanding why? It is enough to do it, if only because we can't not do it?

And do you think less of me because of my fake tv relationships?? Actually, don't answer that one :)


Brooke