Not My Will...but thine?

I was thinking of Jesus in the garden. The thought kept going on, "not my will but yours be done."

You see, obedience isn't easy. I have to admit that sometimes my carnal man doesn't like the idea of God having His way and me obeying it. Does that sound bad? Maybe. In ourselves without the Holy Spirit having His way, we want things to go our way. I sometimes believe that even depression happens when we don't get our way. Things don't work out the way we planned, it rained on our parade, someone said something unbecoming to us, we got turned down for the promotion, I didn't get that gift I wanted, ad infinitum.

There were things that happened to me in the past six months that called for my obedience. I wondered how God was going to pull this off. I wondered if being obedient was the right thing to even do. I finally came to the realization that if I obeyed God that I knew I would be in right fellowship with him again. After making the decision to becoming obedient, I then faced some opposition that made my situation seem worse, not better. I moved back to Ohio and knew I had done God's will. But things were falling apart on me. Things were breaking down, my stress was horrible and other factors made me think: "This is what I get for being obedient?"

Here's the rub: Just because we are obedient doesn't automatically make our situation better. Sometimes I wonder if we think that by being obedient that the skies will turn blue, the financial problem goes away, our health returns and all is fine. Sometimes it does, other times it doesn't.

Is God still good? Rhetorical. But he is. I know this much: by being obedient it may not always change things around us, but it will change "us!" And I know that being in God's will is far better than being outside His will. I'd much rather go through things being in His will than going through them outside His will. It's always better to do right and have God be pleased than to think we can do it by ourselves and mess the whole thing up.

Incidentally, many may think that Jesus was trying to get out of going to the Cross. Actually I believe that Jesus was hoping that He didn't die that night for it would thwart what He needed to do and go to the Cross to redeem us. In my life I want to come to a place where I know that even though being obedient may not always bring a quick blessing, it will keep me closer to God and that's where we all need to be.