The call to holiness requires discipline and focus. The first discipline I mentioned was poverty which also includes poverty of spirit. The next discipline that should be mentioned is obedience.
Obedience is another discipline or avenue of learning that applies to all people in one way or another. It is the effort we make to hear and obey the many promptings from God each day. It is an effort to trust in God and allow God to lead us. Obedience takes many forms. It may mean putting aside our own wishes to respond to the needs of another. It may mean continuing to listen and dialogue with another to see how God is calling. It may even mean simply remaining open and listening to what life is calling us to do or be. But Jesus made it perfectly clear that the spiritual journey consists of hearing his word and of following him by putting that word into practice. “Anyone who desires to come to me will hear my words and put them into practice”.
Being obedient means showing that servant love of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve. It means reaching out to those in need, even when it is inconvenient or when they seem untrustworthy. It means helping others without asking whether they are worthy of our help. It means forgiving when we have been deeply hurt. It means trying to share the message of God’s love whenever possible.
I’m sure that most people don’t think of obedience in this fashion. The obedience I am talking about is the obedience of faith. Faith is hearing the Word of God and resolving to obey what God is asking of us. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. Obedience of faith means to live as I believe This means, of course, that a person must be obedient to the teachings of Jesus, wonderfully summarized in the four basic rules of living that He taught (I’m sure all of my readers remember those …. hint: Doing to others, loving others, forgiving others and not judging others). It also means being willing to respond to all the challenges that life presents in the way that Jesus did. He didn’t fight against life. He embraced it knowing that the challenges were given to Him in order to help Him, as a man, to become an Anointed of His Father.
In order that my readers will not get the wrong idea about obedience, obedience does not mean blind obedience, just doing whatever some authority or life tells you what to do. It means making sure that your obedience conforms to the basic rules and way of Jesus. God did not create us with intellects and then expect us to just blindly give obedience to church or others in authority. Our obedience must be informed, that is based on how we know Jesus would respond. Our obedience must always be thoughtful.