“Klayton, go potty!”
With a smile, my little guy runs the opposite way from the bathroom.
“Klayton, go potty!”
He darts beneath my knees to hide on the other side of the bed.
“Klayton, OBEY!”
I quickly found myself laughing inwardly.
I get frustrated when Klayton doesn’t obey because I often forget that obedience just doesn’t happen-it has to be taught, it has to be a choice. Our natural state is to do what we want to do, not as others want us to do.
When Klayton doesn’t obey, I often will ask him, “Can you hear me?”
Sometimes he nods his head yes and I tell him, “if you can hear me there is no reason to not do what I said.”
Then there are other times he will shake his head no and my reply, “how convenient!”
I ask him that question to get him to stop in his tracks and hopefully get an opportunity to explain that obedience is doing right the first time.
Before we even had Klayton I remember meeting a missionary family to the Amazon Jungle. At the time their little boy was six months old and just starting to crawl. The couple spoke about how important it was to begin instilling obedience in him-even then. It was important because going to the jungle they knew there would be potential dangers…if that little boy was about to cross paths with a rattle snake and they said, “stop” they might not have another opportunity to say stop and it could mean life or death if they had to tell him twice!
My desire is that Klayton will obey the first time. Yeah, it will be nice when we are out and about that I could call for him to come and he would without me having to “chase” him down…not that it has happened before! Ha! When I think about why I want him to obey right away three reasons come to mind:
1. Obedience is a demonstration of trust.
2. Obedience is a demonstration of love.
3. Obedience reaps blessings.
In the course of the next week I would like to continue exploring those reasons, so stay tuned for, Obedience: A Demonstration of Trust!
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