Many years ago as I was busily raising small children, one of our pastors preached a message about obedience. He said that delayed obedience is disobedience and used the example of training children not to run into the street. If they decide to go ahead and run into traffic and then stop in the middle, the results could be catastrophic. The same is true when God tells us to do something and we are so busy doing our own thing that we put off doing His requirement.

How do we know what God is telling us to do? He speaks to us in His Word, if we just take time to listen and then to obey.

You know what else is disobedience? Partial obedience is the same as disobedience. I used to tell my children that they could have a snack and then they had to finish all of their homework BEFORE they could play. Well, they had their snack, but I found that frequently, the older ones would do part of the homework, tell me that they had finished (a lie) and head outside. After all, they told me later in their reasoning, the sun was only going to be up for so many hours but they could do their homework when it was dark. That sounded reasonable, but it was still disobedience as well as lying, and consequences followed. I always told them that if they had trouble obeying me who was right there with them, how would they learn to obey God whom they could not see? They understood well enough to change their habits and get all of the homework done before playtime. And I relented slightly after seeing their willingness to obey, so after a few weeks, I let them prioritize their homework into what would take the most time and do that after playtime. Compromise, but it worked for us after the lesson in obeying completely was learned.

We cannot say we are obeying God if we only do part of what He has told us to do. Remember the Bible lesson about the people Jesus said He never knew? They thought they were doing what He wanted them to do…but were they partially obeying or delaying in their obedience? God does not take disobedience lightly and neither should we. If we know what to do, then we need to do it. That is my Scripture verse today and my lesson for myself, too.

Is there something God has been prodding you to do and you have put it off? Just obey so you can move on with life and in right relationship with the Lord. I am not sure about this, but I don’t think that God will give you the next thing to do until you complete the first task that He has already given you. We grow with God, one step of obedience at a time, not standing at the crosswalk and debating with ourselves whether it’s a good idea to do what God says or not. If we are trying to talk God out of having us obey, that won’t work. Look at Balaam whose donkey spoke to him when he refused to obey the Lord as your example. God can use anything or anyone at any time to get your attention when you are in the process of disobeying. I think it’s a much better idea just to heed His call and obey in the first place so you can grow in the Lord the way you were meant to. Don’t be the one who runs into the traffic and then look up at God and ask how you got into that mess in the first place. Just listen, obey, repeat.