Choosing Obedience Choosing Joy

It has been too long since I sat down and wrote here.

I’ve been somewhere on the crazy spectrum of busy since the end of May and things have slipped.

Lots of things…especially the blog God called me to write.

I could certainly blame the oversight on the crazy things going on around me.

But the truth is I have made choices and they led to disobedience.

I know God wants me to get up early…Did I ever tell you I AM NOT a morning person? And although I know I need to wake up, I have made choices that make obedience difficult.

I stay up really late. I hit snooze on my alarm for an hour. I convince myself I don’t have to get up because I don’t have anything pressing to do.

And I couldn’t figure out why everything was so difficult. Things I normally enjoyed I looked at as drudgery and life spilled out before me as joyless. Disobedience obscured my view of God and I lost my perspective. I was sinking in a hole of hopeless ness and joylessness.

I chose that hole. My choices and disobedience drove me to that hole daily. And my temper got shorter and my days turned sour. I was frustrated because I just could never seem to get up.

I fooled myself that it wasn’t disobedience and that I would do better soon. And soon never came until today…

Today I got up and spent time in God’s Word and writing here.

And it started with a choice. I asked God to help me get up and I chose to stay up. Freed from the disobedience of not getting up, my day already looks better…My perspective is fixed and my heart yearns to follow God.

And it is a choice…a minute by minute one…to obey and fix my eyes on Jesus. There is the joy and freedom as I choose to obey. Even though I don’t like mornings, God is blessing my obedience already.

I am so grateful for God’s grace as He gently guides and leads me when I disobey so that I will come to repentance.

What way do you need to choose to obey God? Is disobedience robbing your joy? What steps do you need to take today to help you make obedient choices?