Consider rewards of obedience

Pastor’s Corner

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

— Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. I’m not speaking in the usual context we consider that statement, like the quote made famous by Pogo - a cartoon character created by Walt Kelly - (the quote was first used on a 1970 Earth Day poster depicting how we are slowly destroying our environment and thus ourselves) but in the sense that we truly seem to have no idea of the consequences of some of the decisions we make.

We’ve all made decisions in the past that we’ve regretted, although sometimes it seems we don’t regret the decisions themselves for we seem to keep making the same type over and over again; it seems instead we regret the negative consequences of some of these decisions.

Have you ever noticed though, sometimes even if we know there’s a positive consequence to making a decision if we make the correct one, we still make the decision that leads to the negative consequence?

This was really brought home to me by a simple decision made by the children in a Sunday school lesson my wife recently had taught.

She had told the children that as homework that they could read any chapter from the book of Proverbs during the week and share anything they had learned to her the next time they came.

Just like we often do, they began to make excuse as to why the request was unreasonable. “A whole chapter?

That’s a lot!” “We won’t have the time to do that this week with all the stuff going on at school” and on and on. Sound familiar?

Like our actions when the pastor, Sunday school teacher or even more importantly, the Lord asks us to do something?

How often have we been asked to do something and find a multitude of reasons why we shouldn’t have to or can’t do something we are fully capable (and havethe time) of doing? How often have we later regretted not stepping up as we see the negative consequences of our decision occurring in our own or other’s lives?

What is even more regretful is to not get to take part in a positive consequence because we decided, for whatever reason, not to be involved.

God has promised us great rewards for being obedient to him, yet like children, we seem to have a habit of making decisions that end up really just being excuses of why what He is asking is unreasonable, is too much, or takes too much time.

My wife had planned to give a shiny new gold dollar to each child who would read any chapter of Proverbs and share what they had learned. Remember, the choice of the chapter was to be theirs; all they had to do was be obedient in doing as asked.

One lesson she wanted them to learn? The Word is golden, and precious.

The decisions they had made caused them to miss out - this time. My wife tells me she will give them another chance to do as asked - once again without telling them what their reward will be - because as she says, God often gives us second chances to be obedient. It will be interesting to see what choice they make this time.

I’ve suggested after the second chance, she give them a third, this time telling them in advance what the reward will be. For me, it will be even more interesting to see the results of that one. After all, we have a book full of the rewards God promises and it seems like we, even knowing the reward, still won’t obey what God has given us to do.

Church, Pages 2 on 01/20/2010