"What?!"

 

Early spring along the shore, Cunningham Pond.

“Obedience to God is the pathway to the life you really want to live.”—Joyce Meyer

The t-shirt is right: “Life is good.”

But loving in it can be hard.

Serving others in it can be hard.

Praying throughout it can be really hard.

“Follow Me” every day in it can be—no, is—definitely hard.

Why should something so good be so difficult?

Because in the natural, following Jesus every day is a war... of wills.

Though everything deep within desires to do so, the mere idea of obeying God can at times seem crazy, foolish, or it simply doesn’t make sense.

The war often prompts a response that sounds like: “Yeah, but…” or “But what if?…” or “Maybe another time.”

It’s kind of like being told by Jesus to go downtown, walk up to a total stranger and say you’re borrowing a couple of his really nice donkeys simply because Jesus needs to borrow them.

“What?!”

Until a seemingly throw-away verse preaches:

“The two disciples did as Jesus commanded.”—Matthew 21:6

And what followed was a time of great joy, shouting and dancing, and a parade filled with waving palm branches and a red carpet of cloaks for Jesus and two donkeys. Not only that, it was a fulfillment of a 500-year-old prophecy about a king and a donkey that would eventually bring Life to all—even those along that parade route—who would believe. “Behold, your King is coming to you!” (Matthew 21:5). Forget the duck boats, marching bands or rose-decorated floats—this was by far the grandest entrance by anyone in the history of the world!…(it gets even better, just wait!).

Every Palm Sunday, it’s that joyous processional we tend to remember. But maybe the story of the guys and the donkeys is just as important. It’s a much-needed reminder that on this Walk of ours, we can never go wrong by obeying the Word, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. “What?!”

Sometimes, you just have to fight (against yourself) for it.

“We’re not called to live by human reason. All that matters is obedience to God’s Word and His leading in our lives. If God says go, we’ll go. If He says stay, we’ll stay.

When we are in His will, we are in the safest place in the world.”

—Brother Yun, from “The Heavenly Man”