Diagnosis America IV - Poor Obedience

The Cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, all that will ever be – Carl Sagan

Do you tend to ignore the Lord’s commands? Lord knows I do. I wind up paying for that eventually. Relying on myself typically brings disaster to the endeavor. Our study through Rick Warren’s A Purpose Driven Life exclaimed at one point that through obedience comes knowledge and wisdom. True. But the very word “obedience” is a tough pill to swallow isn’t it?

“I’m not a kid anymore and your not the Boss of me!” “You spelled ‘you’re’ wrong. It’s y-o-u-apostrophe-r-e” “ARRRGGGGGHHH!”

Ever have that conversation with your parents? I did. And now I have it AS a parent, Lord, give me strength. Yes, obedience is hard, but obey the Lord we must. To complicate it even further is it the Lord we’re obeying? The followers of Jim Jones obeyed his final wretched command. The Branch Davidians sure were obedient as were Heaven’s Gate. Blind obedience ISN’T what it’s about because they’re (Oops, sorry Dad; “there are”) lots of false prophets out there. Paul taught the Lord expects you to seek and discover Him to know He is the Lord. Stacking all your faith chips on one preacher, or a self-described prophet is laziness that eventually leads to death. If not physical death in one brutal, bloody manner or another, then spiritual death - which is far worse.

On this, I’m departing a bit from Jackson Senyonga’s particular critique of America on this topic. He said America’s obedience level is too low. True enough, but his observed root causes for that poor obedience are a little off the mark; “Americans are over-educated. You research. You read a book. And then you read a book about the book you just read. You go online.” There’s nothing wrong with knowledge. Obeying in the search for Him and His truth brings knowledge that brings life. The most brilliant man that ever lived in the world, as far as I’m concerned, was one of the most murderous thugs that ever lived in the world until he got knocked on his ass (like the jackass he was up to that point) on a dusty road to a town called Damascus by Christ Himself. He went on to testify about Christ to the Gentiles (that would be us) and write most of the books in the New Testament and is still having profound impacts for Christ nearly 2,000 years later. He was well educated, extremely brilliant, had a razor sharp tongue, and researched, researched, researched - all for God. No, America, get educated, get smart about God, Seek Him out and find Him. He’s not hiding from us, but the Dark One tries to obscure our vision of Him with silly things like “intelligent” arguments over naturalistic evolution, or “Separation of Church and State,” and so on and so on. Christ on a Crutch!!! What a useless, meaningless, endeavor to work so hard at being wrong!! Focused intelligence, focused education would verily move mountains. Can you imagine what would happen to this world if this so very gifted and educated nation unleashed a thousand Paul’s onto the world?? Or even just a hundred or ten?? Paul the Original moved at a donkey’s pace and look at the impact he had and still is. Our slumbering Paul’s in this country would move at at near super-sonic speed (alas the Concorde is nothing more than a museum piece now), or the speed of light via “going online.” This sleeping giant of a nation could turn the world and the Dark One on its head if only it would awaken to the Lord’s gentle shakes!

But to use a search for knowledge as a crutch, as an excuse for not obeying is a normal bureaucratic tactic that probably enrages the Lord even more so then it would enrage you or me. There are drawbacks to being over educated to the point of analysis paralysis as Senyonga observes, but the potential benefits lying just beneath the surface are too great to pass by. Christ could have passed up those smarty-pants travelers on the Damascus Road so long ago, but He didn’t. Who’s that in the lane next to you trying to get your attention?