Obedience

Yesterday was a hard day with my children. Obedience came hard. We are told in the Commandments, in Deuteronomy 5:16, "Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days might be prolonged, and that it may go well with you..." And, of course, the logical reverse of that would be that if you were not to honor your father and mother, your days might be shortened and it may not go well with you... Such was the case in our house yesterday.

Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, I read on the topic of obedience yesterday morning, before any of those children even opened their eyes for the first time in the day. I read,
"Surrender to His perfect and blessed will, a life of service and obedience, is the beauty and the charm of heaven. Service and obedience were the thoughts that were uppermost in the mind of the Son when He dwelt upon earth. Service and obedience must become with us the chief objects of desire and aim, more so than rest or light, or joy or strength; in them we shall find the path to all the higher blessedness that awaits us." (Andrew Murray, The Believers School of Prayer, p. 134)
Hmmm... that our days might be prolonged and that it might go well with us.
That "the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." (James 5:16)

Murray sums it up with
"It is the man who, in obedience to the Christ of God, is proving that he is doing what his Lord wills, for whom the Father will do whatsoever he will: 'Whatsover we ask we receive, because we keep his commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in his sight."

So, today as we begin the day again in my house, my prayer is for obedience, not just for my children to honor their father and mother, to keep the commandments, but that we all do the things that are pleasing in His sight.