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“If you obey you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey". Deuteronomy 11:9

Yet another blessing of obedience to God is long life. I think what is often over looked is not just the length of life but the quality of your life when you are obedient to God. Without having to dwell on the obvious, media gives us way too much information on how people live unhappy lives. All over this world, and especially the U.S., individuals seek to fill their lives with things that don’t produce the joy and happiness they desire. And too often when imagining long life, we may see an image of an aged saint of God on a cane or walker struggling to make it to his or her front row seat in church. This is not the picture I want to keep in mind though. Why can’t that be a picture of a young 33 year old believer trusting God every step of the way and enjoying life amid unforeseen and difficult circumstances? Today I want to highlight that much of the blessing of obedience when looking at what God promised in regard to long life has to do as much with quality as it does with quantity. Unfortunately, the society we live in has most individuals focusing upon the temporal, non-essentials of living a full, quality life. I know because I have been guilty of having those things and living an empty life. A big house, nice car and fat bank account are only good in the context of your level of satisfaction with them. A large segment of society looks for deeper relationships with people, better paying jobs, longer vacations and many other things. And although none of those things are bad there is a balancing act that God gives to the believer after placing trust in him that allows for a quality of life that hinges on the necessary ingredient of Him. How else can you take two completely different mindsets in two individuals—one trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior the other not, and have the latter be very unhappy in life with gobs of material things and the former happy with half as much? The reason is because the latter doesn’t contain the secret ingredient of God in his or her life. They appear on the outside to have all that they need, but inside they have a God-sized void that can’t be filled living life apart from his will. The other individual enjoys life because they have submitted to God realizing that obedience to him means a life relieved of the pressure of “making it happen on their own”. God takes that responsibility and allows them to become a trusting, dependent sheep as he becomes their Good Shepherd. Many times (and I’d argue that too often) we allow situations that we experience in life to dictate our temperament, instead of establishing that we will have a certain temperament no matter what the circumstance. A life of obedience to God can give you the confidence to know that your covenant-keeping God will be your Psalm 23 shepherd. You can know without any doubt that as a sheep of the Good Shepherd you hear only his voice and you don’t follow another (see John 10:1-5). That means you don’t have to worry about if you “missed” God, or if people don’t understand the road of faith God is leading you down. You can rest assured that your obedience will lead you to a land flowing with milk and honey soon enough, and that God wants you to enjoy a life of trusting him along the way. Obedience to his will does not mean immunity from trials my friend, but peace and grace in the midst of them (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). Continue to obey God and enjoy a life of dwelling under his shadow in the meantime (see Psalm 91:1-2).

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

Called To Brokenness