Obedience = A Whole Lot of Challenges

It’s just like God to let difficult & challenging things happen in our lives to mold us, shape us & refine us to be more like Him.

Abraham – after years of grieving over not having a child, God finally gives him a son then asks him to sacrifice him on the altar.

Joseph – he has 11 brothers who don’t particularly like him and most likely make his life miserable by being mean to him. Then one day, they sell him as a slave and he ends up in Egypt, where the Pharaoh’s wife hits on him and HE ends up in prison!

Moses – he’s a Jew who spent his life living like Egyptian royalty. Then, his anger gets the best of him and he murders a man and runs away so Pharaoh doesn’t have him killed. Then God calls him to take His people out of Egypt … so, he drags his feet, but obeys and ends up in the wilderness, only to die there and never enter the Promised Land.

Paul is called by God … "… a chosen instrument of Mine to carry My name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.
For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name."
And suffer he does, as Corinthians tells us.

Stephen, Peter, James and more are martyred for following and obeying God.

All of these men simply wanted to trust, obey and follow God’s leading. Just what did it get them? All kinds of hardships, challenges and sufferings.

Are we any different than they? I know I too want to follow God’s leading with everything that’s within me. Yet, I know that when I do … difficulties await me. Friends and family don’t understand. Money may be scarce. Not to mention the challenge of whatever the task may be that God should lay before me.

Ah, the Christian life. There’s no better way to live. No better place to be. But no place is more difficult & challenging – yet far more rewarding than anything else! May I always embrace the hardship by entering into radical obedience to my Heavenly Father who loves me more deeply than I can comprehend.