The wall was just millimetres from my nose. Both my palms were flat against it, as if I was putting my hands in the air for a police arrest. “Push your elbows down onto the wall,” came the command. While my personal trainer, Melanie shouted instructions, my mind wandered back 40 years. It was the closeness of the wall that did it. Another voice entered my head – that of my Dad:
“Go straight to the corner, put your hands behind your back and stay there.”
This was my Dad’s disciplinary action. I remember being told to leave the table, after some bad behaviour and being sent to the corner. Why our hands had to be behind our back, I don’t know, but all my siblings at one stage, suffered this punishment after we irritated my father. My mother’s discipline was a little more forceful. She whacked us with a slipper. A good old hiding, my Mom was not afraid to give.
As I related the discipline memory to my gym-mates, one remarked, “Ha ha you felt like you were in the naughty corner! Your Dad was way ahead of his time.”
And he was. Not a man given to violence of any sort, he refused to strike us. Hidings were my Mom’s domain. For my Dad, while he didn’t call it the ‘naughty corner,’ that was where he sent us.
(The illustration is from Little Folks and Little Friends by Oscar Pletsch, circa 1880. www.olddesignshop.com)
It worked. While pain-free, it had the effect of distracting us from our misbehaviour and putting us back on track. I can’t ever remember disobeying my Dad.
Obedience is such an interesting thing. From our earliest years, we are being told by our parents “no”, “careful”, “don’t do”, “watch out,” “you’re not allowed”, “mind that”. We see the dangers they don’t see. We have to teach them to obey us, so that when they are older, they see the dangers on their own and, and having walked in obedience, know how to handle them. Obedience is a sign of servant-hood and humility.
The Bible holds the key to true obedience.
Obey/obeyed appears 206 times in the Bible in various ways, both Old and New Testaments. Some of them:
~ Obey these instructions
~ Obey what I command you today.
~ Obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees
~ Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them
~ Be careful to obey so that it may go well with you
~ The Lord commanded us to obey
~ Children, obey your parents
~ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
~ But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them.
Obedience appears another 38 times
“Walk in obedience to God” is scattered liberally throughout the Bible, ending in 2 John 1:6
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love.
Obeying God is the safest obedience of all. Hebrews 5:9
Once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him
Reading the Bible will change your life forever. Therein lies the way to the source of eternal salvation and that’s what we all want.
Happy obedience!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂