Obedience and a Paper Heart

               "Listen and Obey." It's a phrase I started to say to my kids when the eldest was just a wee thing.  I would tell her to do something and you could see the wheels in her little 2 year old head turning, "Should I do this? What will happen if I don't?" Ultimately that little girl has grown into a now medium sized girl who listens and obeys Mamas voice pretty constantly.  She has 4 younger siblings. Some of them take after her and others need a bit of......um.....'encouragement' in the listening and obeying department.

But what about Mama? How well do I listen and obey? This was a question I have been thinking about for the better part of the day today. I have a handful of experiences where I did not listens to that voice and obey His words. And those experiences left me feeling sorry and brokenhearted. But, I have an immeasurable amount of experiences where I have walked away from a situation or a person thinking "I should have done that" or "I should have said this." Or worse yet, "I should not have done or said that!" Turns out I don't actually listen or obey very well.  Not every experience has big consequences or leaves us brokenhearted. But when do we know which time we ignore the voice of the Lord that it will lead to that broken heart? We don't.  That is why, I have learned, though many self refection sessions and broken hearts, that we have to listen to them all, no matter the cost.

I remember hearing a story as a new Christian over a decade ago of a man who bought a gallon of milk because the Lord told him to. He then drove down the street and stopped in front of a house that he'd never been to before, to give the gallon of milk to a lady who he'd never met before. He said, "This milk is for you. The Lord told me to give it to you." The Lady of course cried and said something to the effect of,  "We are out of money and milk. I wasn't sure how I was going to feed our kids tonight."  Beautiful, I thought. But not real. I mean, it was a beautiful illustration in listening and obeying the Lord in whatever he asks. But, that kind of thing doesn't actually happen, right? Who gives something to someone else for no other reason then the Lord told them to do it?

Today. Today I learned that this sort of thing does in fact happen. But to make it happen, I believe, it takes someone who truly walks with the Lord. Someone who knows him so well, she can tell his voice amongst the many others that try to drown him out each day. She has sat in his presence long enough to know when he wants her to move and when he wants her to stand still. I want desperately to be this person. Not the person who cries out to him only in times of trial. Not the person who, along with her coffee, can't find her Bible in the morning. But, the person who in a room full of other people can hear him say, "Go." And then she goes. No questions. No arguments. No second guessing. Just going. I met a person like this today. Let me share with you how a little paper heart has brought me to tears!

See those cuties?! They have just finished up their school year. Their school put on a silent auction of just a few pieces of art work that the kids did. See the heart at the top? The one that is half pink and half orange? My son, not knowing that I would have to bid on this art work among many of my Christian friends, said to me, "Mama, that's the heart I did for you. I love you, and I wanted it to be your favorite colors." He's right. I love pink. I love orange. They are happy colors. They remind me of flowers, which is kind of my love language, flowers. They are beautiful, they make me smile. But those colors also remind me of the sunset, and of joy. In my opinion, they are joyful colors. My son wanted me to have that little heart. So I bid on the First Grade Classes' art work, several times. I wanted deeply to bring it home and put it up on our wall. Purely because of that little pink and orange heart. But alas, I was out bid by another Mama. One who also wanted to put her child's art work up on her wall at her house. Can you blame her? Of course not! My head knew that there ware 23 other families who would want that beautiful piece of art. But my heart was sad. I took a picture so I could remember it and print it out and put a photograph of it up on our wall. I told my friend about the pink and orange heart. I told her, "Oh, I'll just have to have the kids make me one this summer. It can't be that hard, right?" But in my heart, I was grumbling. I was ungrateful. I was sad. Over a silly little paper heart. It's embarrassing now, to look back and remember how grumpy I was over it.

Fast forward a short time later and I was helping clean up. It had only been a few minutes since the silent auction ended. Not nearly enough time to fight with the Lord over being obedient. Not nearly enough time to go back and forth on "Should I? But I don't want to Lord"  Not nearly enough time! The Mama Bear who out bid me walked up to me and said,

"This is for you. The Lord told me to give it to you."
She handed me the picture with my pink and orange paper heart in it.
I said, with an embarrassing amount of tears, "I don't understand."
"Neither do I."
"I really wanted this."
"So did I. But the Lord wants you to have it."

She was obedient. She didn't want to be, but she was. She didn't understand why he told her to be obedient, but she was.

On the drive home, I was thanking the Lord for the fact that that little paper heart was sitting in the passenger seat next to me. And I was feeling bad about how much I was grumbling about not "winning" it. The Lord said to me, "Leigh Anne. Don't you know that the out come would have been the same? I was going to have her give it to you all along. You could have been happy for her. You didn't need to be grumpy and nasty about it."

I was taught a very sweet and humbling lesson in obedience today. And in Joy. You see, we don't need to want to be obedient to actually be obedient. We don't have to want to be joyful to actually be joyful. It's easy to be joyful when we have the winning bid. The true test of character is our level of joy when we've been out bid. I failed today; But I learned a lesson I will never forget!



Dear Lord,
Thank you. Thank you for your gently taught lessons and even gentler reprimands. Lord, I ask that you will strengthen the faith of all those reading this. You will help them walk in obedience to you. Lord I pray that your voice will be the loudest one we hear and that we will have joy when there seems no way or reason. And that we will be obedient even when we don't understand.
Amen.