Obedience

 Today I went up to the Library, and on the way stopped and got my meds and also put in a check.  While I was out I got to thinking about things.   

The mental health field is all about making sure that you follow protocol, especially if you are working with clients.   If there is an accident many times there has to be follow up and review by people up top (supervisors, HR, board members and such).  This goes for hospitals, any kind of mental health, autism care, you name it.   

While I've had the time I've been doing some reading in my Bibles, especially of Jeremiah and of Exodus and Leviticus.   When we surrender to God in repentance, when we are baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of our sins and are filled with the gift of the Holy Ghost God wants us to have faith in our walk with him, and along with faith comes obedience to his word.   For years king after king in the Old Testament was disobedient to God, they preferred to serve the Baals and turned away from what was right.  

Finally, God warned that they were going to be captured and exiled in a foreign land but his promise was that he would return them to Israel and eventually our Lord would be born and would preach repentance of sins and salvation.    

Obedience is sometimes not easy.  Sometimes God tests us or God will call us into places that are hard to go into and he will ask us to do things that are tough and will result in being laughed at or ostracism.   Jesus brought a little girl back from the dead in the Gospels and he was laughed to scorn when he told the people there that "she was just asleep" because they did not believe in Him and what He could do.  I know that in the future following Jesus is going to take me to some tough places but it's in those dark places that there are suffering people that need to know that God loves them.    

When we go through any type of trial, whether it's losing a job or home or persecutions because of the Word He promises to walk with us.  Peter was afraid when he stepped out of the boat at that command of Jesus, and I'm sure Daniel and his friends were afraid when they were bound up and thrown into the furnace of fire.  But God came through.  God's angel stood with Daniel in the fires and protected them from the heat, and when Peter started to sink Jesus reached out to him and pulled him up.  

As a person on the spectrum I am very much a man of rules and protocol and walking with God at times has been a challenge.  I found myself asking God, "Why is this happening?" when I was put on administrative leave from my job last week.  I was angry and full of uncertainty, but in the middle of that God stepped in and filled me with his peace and used my pastor to encourage me during this time.   

I don't know what's going to happen, but whatever happens God will walk through it with me.  At the same time I know that I need to continue to trust in Him and be obedient to His Word.  

God bless all of you.