I remember the first time I heard “delayed obedience is disobedience”. My first response was “ouch!”. Many times I knew the Holy Spirit was prompting me to do something but my first response was to make excuses or to put it off until later. These promptings by God can come in many differnt forms. Sometimes God places a thought or idea in our minds, He puts a person on our hearts, we see or hear about a situation (perhaps a cause or a crisis) and get a “gut feeling” we are supposed to get involved and sometimes He speaks very clearly to us through scripture, other people or through a quiet whisper. But we wait. We don’t feel like it, we’re too busy, it would be something uncomfortable for us to do or we surmise that we must have not heard right because it just doesn’t fit into our plans. When we don’t respond immediately to clear direction from God then we are walking in disobedience. Now before you go feeling all guilty like I did when I first heard that concept, keep reading. When you hear from God to take action, it doesn’t always mean that whatever God is telling you will happen immediately. He may tell us we are to move to another city, quit a job that we really enjoy, go on a mission trip, adopt a child, or even begin writing a blog. So you don’t have to run out and put a For Sale sign in your front yard or turn in your 2-week notice. You don’t always have to take immediate action, but you are to respond immediately. That may mean that you simply acknowledge God’s direction by beginning to pray about what your next step in the process will be. Many times God tells us to take action that He does expect us to act upon immediately (give of your time/resources to a cause like helping tornado victims, sign up to volunteer for an event or organization, send someone an email to let them know you’re thinking about them) but there are times when God calls us to action for something that will take time and there will be steps toward reaching the final destination. In those instances, simply respond right away. Let Him know that you will do what He’s calling you to do and you will trust in Him to guide your steps along the way. It’s that first step of obedience of saying “yes Lord” that will cause, in time, the next step to be revealed. Right now you may know that God has revealed to you something He wants you to do but you are feeling overwhelmed because you don’t know where to even begin. Obedience doesn’t always require immediate action but it does require an immediate response. And all He’s asking for right now is your willingness to take that first step of faith by responding. Simply say “yes, Lord” and you’ll be amazed at how He begins to orchestrate the plans He has for you!

In the words of a dear friend “here we go…….” and thus the adventure begins.