To Cross, or Not to Cross...

Obedience... "Nah, I don't struggle with that any more... Kids' stuff." Right? Well, we sometimes tend to dawdle away from obedience to God, don't we? I mean, we all sometimes suppress that still small voice inside of us, don't we? It is so easy to be busy doing our own thing, and put our 'earphones' in so that we can't hear a thing, because we don't want to hear that we are doing wrong, or that what we are doing isn't God's will. It is even possible to be doing something for God, and to be disobedient. We tend to want to do what we think is right, no? Let me sketch a scenario that shows what happens when we think we know better.

Scenario:

One day, in downtown New York, a father and his 5 year old son was walking on the sidewalk. They were on a journey, heading somewhere that only the father knew. There were many people there, some were walking in the same direction as they were, while others walked in the opposite direction.

The boy asked excitedly, “Father, where are we going?”

The father smiled down on his son, “It is a surprise, and it will be a very special place. Just keep holding my hand, stay with me, and I will get you there - don’t worry.”

The son smiled, excited, and kept walking happily with his father. But 10 minutes later, the boy became restless, he wasn’t tired, but he was growing more and more anxious to see where his father was leading him. He tugged at his father’s pants, “Are we nearly there yet?”

“Have patience, we will get there.” His father calmly replies. The boy frowns, but just keeps walking.

His legs start to tire after 5 more minutes and he sees a nice bench across the street. He considers it quite fast, ‘I really want to sit, we will never get to the special place anyway - it is way too far…’ he tugs a little away from his father. His father looks down at him -knowing about the bench.

“Son, stay with me…”

Decision 1: The boy looks at the bench, but also looks at his father and considers carefully, ‘I am getting tired, and that bench does look nice, but my father knows what’s best for me; I’d better listen to him.’ They walk on and the boy tugs his father’s pants, “Father, I’m getting really tired.” The father smiles at his son, “Don’t worry son, you are doing great, we will get there. Keep pushing - I know you can make it. I wouldn’t have let us walk this far if I didn’t think you were able of doing it.”

Decision 2: The boy ignores his father’s calls and walks towards the street. His father calls after him twice, urgently, but his father’s voice is later drowned out by the perpetually teaming crowds. The boy is about to cross the street when a thought occurs to him, ‘My father said I should stay with him and hold his hand, but now I’ve left his hand and I’m lost.’ He turns around, but only sees people streaming past him. He looks left, and right, up, and down, but he can’t locate his father. He starts walking in the direction he thought they were going. He walked and walked, but there was no sign of his father…

Decision 3: Regardless of what his father said, the boy only had eyes on the bench, and walked towards the bench without wavering. He crossed the road and heard a cry from a man - his father. He didn’t turn, but kept walking for the bench. The last things he heard were the screeching tires, and his father’s desperate cries… lights out…

Ending to Decision 1: The father smiles when he sees that his boy stays, and just a block down, the father takes his son inside a shop. The son looks around and sees that it is a toy shop. His father takes a toy plane from the shelf and shows it to him. He doesn’t even know what to say, but his father purchases the plane and after they exit the shop, his father carries him back home, whilst his plane is in his hand.

Ending to Decision 2: He walks and walks anxiously till he feels a warm hand on his shoulder. He turns and sees his father, frowning at him, “I told you that you should stay with me… now look what you have done… you walked back the same way that we came, and now we have to walk all the way that you came back… Why didn’t you listen to me?” The father and the boy do end up at the toy shop and buy a plane, but the boy is upset, because he dawdled away and got lost for so long without his father.

Ending to Decision 3: The boy slowly wakes up to see a man in a white coat staring into his eyes. “His vitals are normal… but his left leg will limp for the rest of his life…” the doctor’s face is sad. The boy looks down at his leg, and sees a white thing covering it from toe to his knee. He then sees his father coming to him -not angry, but sad, “I told you to stay with me… I called after you, but you didn’t obey… Now look at your leg…” The boy looks down at his leg and then at his father, he is distraught, ‘Why didn’t I listen… why didn’t I listen!?’

Let’s apply this story to ourselves… We are God’s children, and He is our Father. Plug this truth into our story. We sometimes turn away from God’s walk with us to look for an easy way out - a bench. But what we don’t know is that He has an ‘airplane’ waiting for each of us when we walk the whole road with him in obedience.

Now, plug the fact that you are God’s son/daughter with Him as your Father, into the story and read it again. We can all learn many things from this story…

Just remember; in all things, we have choices…

To cross… or not to cross… that is the question…