Stop! - The Wesleyan Church

I obey your precepts . . . so that I might obey your word. (Ps. 119:100–101)

In the cultural realities of our time and place where personal freedom is hallowed and restrictions are not welcome, obedience is sometimes a foreign, awkward, and unwelcome concept.

While walking with our elementary children in a city park one evening, they were several yards ahead of my wife and me. Suddenly two Doberman pinscher dogs came over a slight hill just in front of us, and they were running in our direction. I shouted to the kids: “STOP!” They immediately did so. It was not that they were always perfectly and immediately obedient, but they were that day. The urgency in my voice communicated that there was something they needed to obey.

The owner of the dogs was also on the run not far behind them and furiously called them. Luckily, they heeded him. More than once, I have wondered what might have happened if either the kids or the dogs had failed to obey. The psalmist makes clear that obedience provides both understanding—how we think—and guidance—how we act.

Sometimes his calling us to obedience is a still, small voice. Sometimes it is a hurricane force calling urgently for our obedience. We are pointedly reminded in the Scripture that obedience is better than any substitute we might offer in its place.

Listen closely to his calling—both whispered and shouted.

HC Wilson is general superintendent emeritus of The Wesleyan Church. He and his wife, Debby, reside in New Brunswick, Canada.