to love God is to obey God.

“Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.” Deuteronomy 5:33 

“Obey and you will be blessed. Disobey and you will be cursed.” Deuteronomy 11:26-28

I have never seen more obedience to God, than I have seen this week. This past week I attended a meet up in Pensacola, Florida. Around 20 other Christ followers my age invited me to come stay in an airbnb where the whole week we would be evangelizing to those in the area. Each day we were there, God called us to talk to multiple different people, but I want to tell you about a woman named Kathryn. 

Kathryn was sitting in the corner of a coffee shop with a look of despair on her face. As I was ordering my coffee, my good friend Ayden felt God calling him to talk to her. He told me he felt this calling from God, but he also told me that he was anxious about it. He didn’t know if she was a believer, or if she would shut him down, BUT he obeyed God and approached her. He called me over to them after I had received my coffee and it turns out she was a believer. 

We all sat down and she started to tell us her story. She had just lost everything, she didn’t have a place to live, she didn’t have a job, and she didn’t have any money. She had lost everything in this world, but what she did have was obedience. God had told her to take three whole days to just pray. The day we met her was her third and final day of prayer, after this day she would check herself into a homeless shelter. She had also told us that she had applied for a job at a local tea room, but the owner hadn’t reached out to her yet and even if they did, she wouldn’t be getting paid for another month. This meant that she had less than $10 to live off of for the next month. At that moment I prayed to God and asked Him how I could help her. I felt God telling me to give her $500. By the goodness of God, I had a little over $500 in my savings account that other people had sent me for my mission trip. I’m not telling you that I sent her this money for attention, I’m telling you this so you can see my obedience to God first hand. My friend Nikki also sent her $100. Recently God has taught me that the money we have in this world belongs to Him, we just have possession of it. If God calls us to give his money to someone else, we should obey that calling, and God will take care of us. Yes it would have been nice to use that money for my mission trip, but Kathryn needed it way more than I did, and God knew that. 

This morning I received a call from Kathryn, she was balling her eyes out on the other line. She shared with me that she was on the way to the gas station to buy another $1 banana for the day and she checked her bank account and saw the money God sent her through me. She shared with me that in the coffee shop the previous day she prayed that God would send her $20 so she could survive for the rest of the month. I told her not to thank me, but to thank God, for it is not my money, but his. She also shared with me that she received a text from the owner at the tea room she applied at, and with no interview or anything, they asked her to start today. Not only did they ask her to start, but they informed her that they would be paying her immediately and not in a month like they previously stated. YOU CAN’T TELL ME GOD ISN’T SO GOOD!

A few hours after my call with Kathryn I received a venmo donation for $937, exactly the amount of money I needed for my September deadline for my mission trip. Because I was obedient and listened to God telling me to give Kathryn $500 yesterday, today he blessed me with $937!! YOU CANNOT OUT GIVE GOD!! 

I’m sharing this story with you to show how listening to God and being obedient to Him is so important and so fruitful. Kathryn was obedient to God by devoting three whole days to prayer, Ayden was obedient to God by taking a leap of faith and initiating a conversation with Kathryn, I was obedient to God by passing on $500 to Kathryn, and the person that donated to me was obedient to God by sending me $937!!! If one of us didn’t obey God, none of this would have ever happened. 

“To love God, is to obey God.” -Lailah Gifty Akita