Are you willing to obey God? No matter what the task are you willing to step out in obedience? More than that, I am not asking if you are willing to start in obedience. I want to know if you will finish the task and complete the assignment God gave you.
Noah received a huge assignment from the Lord. Build a boat one and a half football fields long, half a football wide and four and half stories tall. God spoke to me through one verse this morning. Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. [Gen 6:22]
It is so easy to start out on an assignment God has given only to lose heart when the going gets tough. It is easy to give up when the assignment takes longer to complete than first anticipated. Obedience is not just starting something. Obedience means seeing your assignment to completion. It means finishing your education. It means staying the course in your ministry until God takes you home or releases you. It does not mean quitting because the way is difficult and the results are few. Obedience means following when retreating looks like a better option. Obedience means enduring ridicule when others do not understand what God has called you to do.
We know it took Noah six centuries to complete God's assignment. That is why [Gen 6:22] means so much to me. HE DID ALL GOD HAD COMMANDED HIM. I know what it is like to get excited initially about anything new. We get excited about new exercise equipment, new Bible studies, new food, new vehicles, a new book, a new job, and new educational opportunities. Then the monotony sets in of day in and day out devoting ourselves to the same task. It becomes routine. The excitement wears off. The daily grind sets in. Relationship friction surface.
It is during these times that thoughts of quitting are entertained. During these seasons the temptation to pursue other opportunities and greener pastures tempt us away from God's calling. Noah did not do this. For 120 years he worked on that ark. He had a vision about God destroying the earth and a clear assignment to build the ark to rescue his family. That vision drove him day after day to do all that God commanded.
Stop where you are and slow down for a second. Can it be said of you in this moment that you are doing all God has commanded? Did you put your hand to the plow of some assignment for God but turned back before finishing.
It is not too late. Right where you are in this moment you can turn your heart and mind back to God. You can resolve you will obey no matter what radical adjustments that brings. You can take the first step in faith and trust God with each additional step. You can turn a deaf ear to the doubters and doomsday prophets while keeping an open ear to heaven for further instruction.
I want to do all God has commanded me to do. In this moment I am doing that in writing this blog. Later, I will do that by investing in some fifth grade football players and sharing this scripture at the end of practice. I will love my boys and I will seek my Lord. Until I die or God chooses a different assignment I will give myself to planting Faith Community Church. I will devote my life to writing the books God calls me to write. I will continue to labor and trust God to pay off the debt for the hospital in Honduras.
At the end of our lives I hope it can be said of each of us that we did all that God commanded.
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