obedience

in My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald was talking a lot about obedience. Yesterday he was talking about obedience being the process of hearing the command to God and DOING it. He says, “The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience…Intellectual darkness comes through ignorance; spiritual darkness comes because of something I do not intend to obey.”

This is pretty intense – Intense because I’m making life changes… intense because I work with people who are made up… intense because I don’t know what to do with any of it. Oswald says, “First Go – at the risk of being thought fanatical you must obey what God tells you.” But what if you legitimately aren’t sure of what he’s telling you? I guess you obey what you know and keep asking for what you don’t.

My quiet time tonight was Peter’s Vision and Cornelius’ Reply. So there is our friend Peter sitting on the roof of his buddy Simon, just chillin’. Peter falls into a trance – the bustle of the street below and the waves lapping against the shore fall faint as he’s fully enveloped by this vision of the Lord. A Sheet with animals floats down and angels bring down the corners of it to the Ground and God says to peter what I have made holy is not unholy.

This is obviously a gross oversimplification of the verses in question, but it’s enough to get the gist of what is happening. God is telling Peter a message in a super miraculous vision that he otherwise wasn’t going to figure out on his own. Before last night I thought that the vision’s purpose was to break down some of Peter’s barriers to sharing the faith with the Gentiles (Cornelius). Making him open up his palette a bit and eat the foods he would otherwise deem unclean. I think I missed the picture all this time. That wasn’t the purpose, the purpose had little to do with his mouth and his stomach and everything to do with his heart. The Gentiles were the animals on the sheet, the sheet was God’s love and acceptance, and peter was to take, kill and eat (metaphorically) – Go, talk and reap. Peter awoke from his trance and did just that. He was resolute. He said “I am who you came for, let’s Go.”

I’m not sure what that means for me yet, but I know it’s been like a burr in my shoe since I read it and there is something really important within that text that the Lord is trying get me to understand.