The Price of Obedience

I never thought I would move home after college. It's not that I don't love my family or that I didn't want to live in the town that I grew up in. Rather, by the time I graduated from high school, I was so dissatisfied with the church community in my town that I promised myself I would never have to deal with it again. I was done. I moved to Rochester, NY for college and there, I could visit a different church every Sunday if I wanted to. And they were all great. I was convinced that Rochester was where I would settle when I graduated.

But God had other plans for me.

After going on a few missions trips, I began to regularly pray, "Here I am, God. Send me." I assumed that God would send me to a faraway land and I would spend my twenties cuddling with orphans. Maybe in China or Africa or Guatemala?

But that's not where God sent me.

Nope, he sent me right back to my hometown, the very place I had promised myself I would never live again. I knew deep down that God was calling me home long before I officially decided to actually move there. But I didn't know why, so I was resistant. I didn't want to leave the comfort of Rochester, the comfort of an awesome church community and an established group of friends.

Obeying what God has called us to do isn't always easy.

Last week, I wrote about the Israelites in the book of Ezra. After 70 years of captivity, they packed their bags and headed back to their homeland to rebuild the temple. They obeyed God's initial calling. It was hard for them to leave the "comfort" of their captivity. Most of them had been born into it; it was all they had ever known. As we look further into their story, we learn that as they began to build the temple, their enemies set out to discourage them. Ezra 4:4 says that "the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building." Their enemies tried to instill fear into them. But that didn't work, so they took more drastic measures and wrote a letter to the king, claiming that the Jews were rebellious and wicked, that if their building continued, the kingdom would ultimately suffer. The letter worked and the building came to a standstill.

But God had other plans.

Though a decade without any building passed, a new king came into power and the Israelites once again began building.

I'll say it again: obeying what God has called us to do isn't always easy. There will be people in our lives who will say and do absolutely anything to try and stop us from doing what God has called us to do. And they might succeed at first. But isn't God the God of the universe? Didn't he create the naysayers and the rulers? Isn't he sovereign?

So if God wants something to happen, IT WILL HAPPEN.

There's nothing anyone can do to get in his way. And all he asks us to do is obey. To trust him. To believe that his plan is the best plan. To let his will be done.

So what's stopping us from obeying? Fear? Anxiety? Society?

• God says: Do not fear for I am with you. (Isaiah 41:10)
• God says: Cast all your anxieties on me for I am with you and I care for you. (1 Peter 5:7)
• God says: Take heart, for I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

And all I'm left to say is: Use me for your will, Father. I will obey.