Obedience.

As the year comes to an end, I can mark off another Christmas away from home.

As I sat with some of the children from one of our boy’s home, there was one huge similarity between us. Aside from loving Jesus, we were all away from our actual homes this Christmas. Some children were only a couple of hours away from home, while others a full day’s travel, and some of us, a half a world away from our loved ones. Although being so far away from home could have put anyone into a bad mood, the truth is, all of us were exactly where God called us to be.

There’s something spectacular about obedience to the Creator of the Universe. When I was younger, I used to think obedience was just a prerequisite into adulthood; children have to obey adults and then once they become adults, they don’t have to “obey” anymore. I used dream about the days where I could eat ice cream before dinner and my mom couldn’t ground me because, well, I’m an adult now. Or, when report cards came and I used to be afraid that my parents would see my poor grades and I would have my toys or T.V time taken away from me as punishment for not doing well in school. My obedience to my parents was fear driven. They established rules and if the rules were broken, certain punishments would apply. My parents were sentinels with their rules and rightfully so. As a child I tried to get away with murder, time after time. I needed my mother’s relentlessness to sticking to the rules and my father’s resounding “No’s” to help shape me into the woman I am today.

The older I become the more obedience makes sense, especially during the Christmas season. We all know that Christmas is the birth of Christ. We know why he came, to mend the bridge between us and our Creator, a new opportunity to know God the way he always wanted us too. But at a cost. Whether it’s trusting someone all over again, allowing them back into your life after they’ve hurt you, or sticking up for them when you know you shouldn’t, in order to mend a broken relationship, we have to sacrifice something. In Christ’s case, it was His life he had to sacrifice.

Christ’s sacrifice for our lives was not accidental. And if his sacrifice for my eternity wasn’t enough, I am drowned in his mercy and grace because I know nothing I do will ever be enough for Him and yet he still accepts me and calls to me, sin after sin after sin. My obedience to Christ is not fear driven like my obedience to my parents. My obedience to Christ is driven by awe and amazement that He would chose someone like me to help further His Kingdom. My obedience to Christ is driven by his love for me. And this is the message we want our children in our Remember Nhu homes to hide deep inside their hearts. Our obedience to Christ isn’t because he will do something for us, but that he has already done something for us before we were born, before we even knew we needed it. And when we obey our Lord, we know amazing things will come out of our obedience. In my case, the opportunity to live on the other side of the world and experience friendship and love in ways I didn’t know existed. In our children’s cases (although they may not have known it at the time who they were truly obeying) they’ve gained their freedom from ever being sold into the sex trade, the opportunity for higher education, and the opportunity to learn about God, who loves these children so much he refuses to let them go.

I’ve learned that obedience is about saying, “Yes” to whatever God has in store for your life. And from previous experiences, I have never been disappointed when I said “Yes” to God.

“See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children, and we really are!” 1 John 3:1