Partial Obedience

            When I was 7 years old I was told to never watch pro wrestling because my Mom told my brother Jonathan and I that it would make us too violent.  I’m not a parent but I know as a kid when I heard my parents say “don’t do_______” that only made me want to do that thing 1,000 times more.

            I would go to my friend Aaron’s house under the guise of playing with action figures when really we would watch Bam Bam Bigelow, the Undertaker and Diamond Dallas Page wrestle.  Between the homemade attempts to “flying tuna” or “Tombstone Pile drive” each other, it is fair to say that it is solely by the grace of God that I survived those Saturday mornings in Aaron’s basement.  It is still a goal of mine to put someone in the “Diamond Cutter” like I saw DDP do so many times…and Gold Dust is still the worst thing to happen to pro wrestling…ever.

            When I was 16, Jonathan enlisted in the Navy and he went off to basic training and his B and C schools, where he learned advanced hand-to-hand combat among other awesome skills.  When he returned from basic training I did the basic math and realized that I had him by 30 or 40 pounds.  I had been able to beat Jonathan in most fights growing up, or at least I like to recount history in this way.  I waited behind the couch in our living room for my moment to pounce.  My moment became blatantly obvious, his back was turned and he was talking to my Aunt Gayle.  I pounced! Grabbing him from behind beginning our wrestling match which, much like Sherlock Holmes, I had already decided the entirety of the fight which culminated in my long cherished Diamond Cutter onto the floor of my parents living room.  The fiction of this story is that I thought I would win, the reality of the situation is that very quickly Jonathan had me contorted into a human pretzel on the floor of the living room with me writhing to escape…to no avail.

            Whether it was “uncle!”, “MERCY!”, “Let go! You’re hurting me” or unintelligible grunting….Jonathan relented.  “IDIOT!” I yelled at him when I’d regained my footing as I jumped on top of him yelling “FLYING TUNA!”…Within a matter of seconds I was returned to the pretzel that resembles Jeremy position again pleading for mercy.

            When I examine scripture I see so much of the same types of things happening along the way in my walk with the Lord.  The Lord is my heavenly father and he has told me of certain behaviors that I should avoid, things that wont end in joy but in pain.  But we, believing ourselves to be smarter than the creator of the universe, refuse to listen to our heavenly father and sneak away to entertain our sinful desires. 

            Scripture and human history is a tale of a relentless God in pursuit of a stiff-necked people.  God has been constantly chasing after his creation, making the way for us to return if we would ever chose to turn around.  In this wooing of the Lord, he only asks one simple thing.

Stop.  Lay down your weapons and come with me.

As the dust settles, we begin to see him more clearly…He meets us right where we are and offers us redemption and reconciliation from the very first second we lay down our weapons.  He doesn’t make us walk backwards through our sin to make us clean ourselves up, rather, he meets us where we are and invites us to join in the heaven-bound journey.

…but just like me in my wrestling with Jonathan, we too yell “idiot” and attack again…we’ve been rebels for so long that we don’t know life without a sword in our hand.

Jesus lets us go, knowing how this will end, with us being held by him, pleading for us to relax and trust him.

This isn’t a one time occurrence though, we continue to war against God.

What we must remember is that He is our savior, our reconciler and our PEACE-GIVER…nothing in his character warrants our rebellion. He is deserving of our trust, hope and lives.

When we come to know Christ we have to go ALL IN.  We have to give him every aspect of our lives.  I’ve heard it said before that Jesus’ gift is completely free but will cost you everything.

Partial obedience IS disobedience.

We can’t just offer Jesus 98 percent of us…He rightfully deserves 100 percent.  We have to give him every bit of our selves.

What are you/we holding back?

What pet sins are we nurturing?

What rebellions are we still firing off against God?

Remember, He is our peacemaker and is gently and patiently asking us to lay down our swords and trust Him.