Tuesday's Teachable Tidbit: Obedience

Our current read-aloud is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. It is a great book and we are all enjoying it! (We like the movie too...though quite different from the book.)  So, I am going to make this a teachable moment. Ella of Frell, the main character, was given the 'gift of obedience' at birth by a fairy.  She has no choice but to obey commands given to her. However, she considers it a curse rather than gift.

This week, I read the following in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.

"Our Lord never insists on our obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him." ... "If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself."

Obedience is a gift when we give it out of love.

And as Oswald Chambers says: "If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of the Almighty God."

(-excerpts taken from November 2)