The Path of Obedience

Several years ago I was a general manager for a retail establishment. One of our stores had a manager who made a bad decision and destroyed the morale of the employees and split the store so the team was at odds with each other. The district manager invited several of us to apply and share our vision of how to rebuild the team and restore peace. My vision and plan won the job for me. As I was transitioning out of my previous store, their issues began to keep me busy unnecessarily. I called the assistant manager, who was running it temporarily, about the issues. In our conversation they let me know they had been a candidate for the job and they had a completing vision. I let them know they needed to choose between my vision and theirs, and if they chose theirs, they needed to move on. We had worked together before and were friends, but I couldn’t have another vision fighting against mine. They chose to leave.

In the story of Jonah, it starts off with God visiting him presenting a vision of what He wanted him to do. He wanted Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh to proclaim judgement against it unless they repented. Verse 3 says, “But Jonah ran away to Tarshish to escape from the presence of the Lord [and his duty as His prophet]” (AMP). Jonah had a competing vision for his life and ran away from the path of obedience. You know the story of how God sent a storm and the men through Jonah overboard where he was swallowed by a great fish. In the darkness, he cried out to God. In chapter 2 verse 9 he repented and said he would do what he had vowed. In that moment, he agreed to be obedient to God’s vision for his life. The fish vomited him onto the shore and he went to the city where they changed their ways.

In Philippians 2, Paul writes that we should have the same attitude and mind that Jesus had when it comes to God’s vision and plan for our lives. Verse 8 says, “He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death— his death on the cross” (GNT). God’s vision and path for your life aren’t the easiest to follow. Your flesh will be at war with it because your flesh has a competing vision. Only you can decide which you will obey. You may be running away from God’s plan up to this point. The good news is that God gives us chance after chance to return to the path of obedience. We must daily take up our cross, crucify our desires and competing visions to it and be obedient to God’s plan no matter what it is. Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we must pray, “Not my will, but yours be done.” That is how we stay on the path of obedience.

Photo by Lisa Fotios on Unsplash.