When I was like 8 years old I can remember thinking, “Man, if mom would only listen to me!”

As if… somehow, in my 8 years of infinite wisdom, I could know more than her.

Ashtyn, at age 7, hassles me over things like, “But this DOES match.”

Or “I DID brush my teeth.”

And “I don’t need to go to bed! I’m not tired. I promise!”

With parents and children, we see and agree with the established relationship of who should obey whom.

But it doesn’t stop us as kids, or our kids from trying to get our of listening and obeying to those we should.

I wonder… is that the reason we don’t listen and obey as adults?

Busted

WHAT?!? Seriously Nicole, are you saying that as adults we are still dealing with the disaster and delay of disobedience? Yep, we are. You, me, my husband, your spouse – all of us.

We park where we shouldn’t, run red lights (with the consoling thought of I think I can make it), leave electronic devices on when the stewardess has told us to turn them off…

Yep – that happened just now.

We are on a ridiculously early flight again, in a hurry to get where we are going, and David is reading the newspapers on his Kindle. The “turn off electronic devices” statement was said. He put it away – for about 2 minutes – and then pulled it out and started showing me what he was just reading.

To which I promptly laughed out loud and responded, “You are sooooo making my blog!”

He laughed back and said, “I am so busted!”

He knew what I was writing about.

Don’t Get Caught

He had one eye on his Kindle, one on the stewardess. I told him, ‘You can’t even fully enjoy disobedience. You have one eye on trying not to get caught the whole time. We laughed again…..then he put it away. LOL

The beauty of being the blogger is that I can tell on him today and leave myself out of it! We will save my stupidity for another day. There is plenty of it to talk about next week and the week after.

And so with disobedience – we can’t even fully enjoy it and we do it anyway. We know we might get caught, and that doesn’t stop us. There are likely consequences for not being obedient – a reprimand, loss of credibility, or even worse – and we STILL do it.

What’s Up?

We incorrectly measure the consequences of the disobedience and therefore justify it. Not realizing that we are operating in a pattern that loosens the integrity of our life.

Life is like a pickle jar. It’s hard to break that integrity seal the first time. But once we give it to our spouse, pound on it with a knife, bang it on the counter and finally get it to open – it opens SO much easier every time after that. One finger may even open the jar after that.

That is why the Bible says:

To obey is better than sacrifice.
— 1 Samuel 15:22 NIV

God’s not impressed with the sacrifice it takes to clean up disobedience. Like our parents, our boss and others in authority, He much prefers obedience.

Obedience is Cheap

The clean up… the time it takes to restore trust, credibility and honor… the ground we have to retake in our own lives to come back to the place where we were before we disobeyed…

Sacrifice costs us so much more than disobedience. And little disobedience paves the way for big disobedience. Ouch.

I don’t know if this is tap dancing on your soul like it is mine, but my toes just got stepped all over.

As the announcement comes over the intercom to turn off my electrical device at this time, I believe I will comply. I’m going to be obedient this time. And keep trying…