The Phil Files

As parents, when our kids keep asking us again and again why they have to do something, many of us has reached the frustration point and repeated what our parents said to us: “You have to do this because I told you to do it and I’m your parent.” I know some folks go into histrionics and that this approach is unfair. However, a three year old can ask more why questions than a day has minutes and they simply cannot comprehend the answers to most of those questions. Somewhere along the way, they have to trust their parents are telling them the truth the best they can understand it, that those same parents are trying to do what is best for them, and their job is to simply do what they are asked to do.

As we grow older, however, we bristle under the thought that we should do something just because someone else tells us to do. This is not bad; in fact, quite often it is good to question things we are told to do and ask the ethical implications of those actions. Yet there are also things that God asks us to do that we may not understand and might not even agree with if we were honest about our emotions. Yet it is at this moment of obedience that we are changed — not into mindless robots, but into folks who have learned to trust God even when they don’t understand all the “why reasons” behind the demands of God.

In my daily reading today from Matthew 1, Joseph is confronted by the pregnancy of his promised wife Mary. She is pregnant and he knew he was not involved in causing that to happen. He faced with believing an impossible story or divorcing her. He chooses the latter, but intends to do it in a way that will not shame her, even though by all appearances she has betrayed him and shamed him. Yet God reveals through the angel in a dream the spiritual truth behind Mary’s pregnancy. His response is both convicting and inspiring.

//Inspiration: Matthew 1:24
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.

//Incarnation: My take on the verse for me
Wow, I’m not sure I could do this. The hurt I know he felt coupled with the unbelievable mystery that God was working in Mary had to be overwhelming. I must confess that so much of the world and my desire for self-protection makes it hard for me to be as committed to wholehearted surrender to the will of God as Joseph shows himself to be. I know there are some things I need to do simply to honor God, especially when I cannot explain them.

//invitation:
O Father, you know the weaknesses of my heart and my will. I want to trust and respond simply and obediently to your demands in my life. Please forgive me for the times I’ve been hesitant and resistant to your will. Please work through your Holy Spirit on my heart as I commit to be more genuinely yielded to Your will. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.