I have spent the last 7 to 10 days in a place that I would describe as complete surrender. Knowing that I have nothing to offer God, resting in His peace, knowing He loves me, and waiting for His command to obey. And in an instant to my mind comes a call to action. A compulsion of the Lord if you will... an act of obedience.
So what do I do? I spend a couple of days mustering up the courage to actually do it. And so I stepped out in faith only to be totally rejected and shut down. Instantly fear entered. Why?
Fear entered because I had determined in my mind what the results of the obedience should be. I had a predicted an acceptable outcome. In other words, I am still alive, still trying to control. Not believing and accepting the fact that I am dead in Christ, but needing once again for the cross to come to bear on some piece of me rising up against God.
Even worse the results started a whole process in my mind of how did I miss God? Is He mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Can I hear His voice at all? Did I wait to long to act? All lies designed to keep me from boldly going to God again.
Reality is that God's commands do not come with guaranteed to even predictable results. Additionally there is a place in surrender where the results are inconsequential to the obedience. Jesus prayed for the sick in His hometown in obedience to the Father. And yet the bible says few were healed. Results are not related to obedience as the results are dictated by God's intent, not ours. At the end of the day God is too deep to explain Himself, and for us to have complete understanding is never promised.
So what has happened in this realization of the fear. Firstly, for me the fear points to a practice I must allow to die. If I continue to predict or prescribe acceptable outcomes for obeying God the disappointment will cause me to veer from the obedience. In other words, if I continue to predict the outcome of my obedience, then my failure to correctly predict runs the risk of causing me to give up on obeying. Secondly, this fear; which is related to crisis, is designed to show me the part of me that has not shared Christ's experience on the cross. The crisis, whether financial, physical, emotional, relational, health, or any other crisis is there to show me who I perceive myself to be in Christ. And as that perception does not line up with God's it is a huge opportunity to lay myself down and pick up Christ. In this case I reject the fear as a lie, and I go back to God, knowing I obeyed and ready for His next task.
In the end, outcomes are irrelevant, obedience to the compulsion of God it the only thing necessary. T Austin-Sparks says, "The only certainty is God. An apostle may be led to move in a particular direction, and then by reason of need and opportunity he may conclude that certain (results) are the objective, but when he reaches a point (where predicted results meet real results) he will be met by a double, divine 'no' to those thoughts, and be shown something un-thought of. (Acts 16:6-10)" Simply put, obey because predicting the results will be met with a "no." But the obedience will produce something un-thought of, something wholly God.
The fear is a lie, and a telltale sign of something un-surrendered in me, something not trusting in God. It is up to me to ignore the fear, press into God in prayer, and wait from His next command. The results are God's responsibility for which I share none. So until I get it completely, I feel all too often like the boy in the picture, crying to God about not getting my way.
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