Listening to God Obediently

Listening to God Obediently

Listening to God obedientlyI was taken by two quotes today. They talk about two different things – prayer and obedience- yet they seem to talk about the same thing: listening to God. That seems to be the ultimate thing for all who want to know and be known by God. How are prayer and obedience linked to that? Let’s find out. Jesus himself talked about obedience meaning love for God. Clearly, that is a good place to start our exploration.

The person who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him [I will make Myself real to him]. (John. 14:21, AMP)

Listening to God…

Mother Teresa writes “Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.” Prayer is putting ourselves in the hands of God. We acknowledge that we are humans and God is God and we need his help. We surrender ourselves to God and ask he will take care of us and guides us. And in order to be able to know what God wants us to do next, we need to listen to him. He does not yell, he whispers. God doesn’t force, he gives hints. So we need to listen carefully in order to hear him. Hence we pray. We pray and listen. We put ourselves in the hands of God.

…obediently

What about the other quote? This quote is by Christiopher Jameson. It tells us about the Latin origin of obedience. Bear with me. It will bless you in the end. Jameson writes, “‘Obedience’ derives from the Latin word oboedire which means, not only ‘to obey’ but also ‘to listen’. The prefix ob- means ‘in the direction of’ which’, added to audeire ‘to hear’, becomes oboedeire. So obedience conjures up an image of leaning towards somebody, straining to hear what they are saying. ‘Listen to somebody else’ is both the original meaning of obedience and a good working definition.”

Isn’t that a beautiful image of obedience and prayer at the same time? We intentionally lean towards God to hear all he has for us. Because he has the words of life. He has everything that makes our life beautiful and delightful. We don’t want to miss a thing. Otherwise, we might miss something truly precious. And we don’t want that. We want all that God has for us. Hence we are listening to God obediently.

 

Gracious God,
We thank you and we praise you.
How awesome you are to arrange
prayer and obedience to be so intertwined.
So we fulfill both of those commands
by intently listening to you
and letting you work in and through us.
Come, talk to us.
Let us know what you have for us.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: What do you think about prayer and obedience? Do they come together in listening to God intently? Are you listening to God obediently?

Be blessed my fellow pilgrim as you embrace God for all he has for you!

Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash. I am linking up with #tellhisstory.

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