The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
SoulFit: Obedience Before Understanding: Turning Scripture Into Daily Action
We explore how trust grows when we move without the full plan and why obedience often unlocks the clarity we keep waiting for. Stories from Abraham, Peter, and our own family remind us that God gives direction, not detail, and prayer teaches us to hear the next step.
• three pillars of fitness and focus on the spiritual pillar
• obedience before understanding as the core theme
• Abraham’s call as direction without detail
• personal move to a new space with uncertainty
• family missionary journey shaped by small faithful steps
• Peter walking on water and the pull of doubt
• why God shows the next step not the staircase
• prayer as training to recognize God’s voice
• practical challenge to take the next small step
“What's the next small step that God is inviting you to take through communication of prayer?”
Welcome to SoulFit. Thank you so much for joining us today. If this is your first time to Soul Fit, kind of what we do is it's my belief that we have three pillars in our life, physical, mental, and spiritual. And this our SoulFit is one of our spiritual pillars. It's just about a 20-minute faith-based conversation that we join a live call each week. And I share that with others as we just discuss the topic and we really talk about how do we take, how do we use some of those verses that we cover in the from the Bible? And how do we put those lessons and things, the Bible, into our everyday life? How do we make them practical? And so how do we be how do we help our soul to become more fit? And just like physical and mental fitness, it requires application and repetition over and over again. So thank you for joining us today on Soul Fit. Let's join our live call. We're going to talk a little bit about obedience before understanding. How many times do we tell our kids when they ask why? What is sometimes our response? Because I said so. Because I said so. Man, y'all answered that really quick, like you've used it before. Yeah, it really is. It's about because I said so. And you know, and we get and when we do that and they keep pushing us, what do we then say? Do we do we stay calm or do we get a little bit more aggravated? Aggravated. Yeah, we get aggravated because either we don't want to share the whole why we want them to do something, or we don't have the time. We just want them to do that thing we're asking them to do. And and but as adults, we do the same thing. We we often want clarity before we move. God often asks us to move before He gets before He gives clarity. It you know, and but we ask why all the time. Well, why should I do that? I don't know if I want to do that. I don't that doesn't make sense to me. We say all those things. So we're gonna talk a little bit about faith isn't always trusting when everything makes sense. Faith is trusting when it doesn't make sense, and that's and and that's where our obedience comes in is obedience isn't the result of understanding. Obedience is the pathway to understanding. So obedience is not the result. Hold on. Somebody's on the phone. I I think so. I think somebody's at work. Somebody's working. So so if you just answer the phone, you might just hit the hit the little button before we hear all the business. Before we hear all your business. So obedience isn't the result of understanding. Obedience is the pathway to understanding. So, you know, how many times have we said, God, show me the whole plan, and then I'll do it. You know, what do we mean necessarily when we say God that we want him to show us the whole plan? I think really when we say that, when we say, show me the plan, we want him to show us all of it. I need to know where I'm gonna stumble, where I'm gonna succeed, where it's gonna work, where it's not gonna work. I need to see the whole detail lined out. But that's not really how our faith works. God rarely gives us the full picture, he just gives us the next step. So when we moved here to MWB Fitness, as many of you know, Kim and I had some big discussions about it, and we weren't always in agreement because she doesn't like change, and sometimes I I change too quick with things, so it was a big discussion on that because there's a lot of things that didn't make sense moving into our new space, it just didn't make sense, we couldn't see certain things, all of that we just couldn't see, and so it took a lot of faith and obedience, and and and I think some of our biggest challenges in our discussions was we couldn't see the whole picture, what we were supposed to do. And as we're gonna talk about a couple couple scriptures, that the pattern in the Bible is God gives direction, not detail. He tells us what direction to go to. So we have Abraham in Genesis 12, 1 through 5. I'm gonna read those verses real quick, but it's about Abraham. The Lord He said to Abraham, Go from your country. So put yourself in Abraham's position. Is as I say, Abraham, put your name there. The Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will give you your name great, and you will be a blessing. I I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on the earth earth will be blessed through you. So Abraham went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abraham was seventy-five years old when he set out for Haron. He took his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, and all their possessions they accumulated, and and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. So how many of you? He didn't say what to do there. He said, Go there. So he didn't give he didn't give him a set address. He said, The land I will show you. Leave and I'll show you. So he didn't give him an address, didn't give him a map. But what did Abraham do? He took the step out of the front door. And what if, you know, it's easy to say, what if it's just me, if God tells me to do something? But one of the reasons I'm here in Texas, one of the reasons I'm talking to, one of the reasons any of you know me at whatsoever, is because a missionary came to my parents' church in Missouri, Missouri, yes, and talked to them about this place that is translates the Bible, and you can learn how to translate the Bible. It's a little place in Bowie, Texas called Bible Baptist Translators Institute, right outside of town. And my parents just on a random Sunday. On a random Sunday, this missionary comes to my parents' church and shares briefly about BBTI, Bible Baptist Translators Institute, in this little town in Bowie, Texas. And my parents discuss it. They sell everything with, and I'm not talking about within months, within a month. They they gather funds from the church to give them money, and they come to BBTI. That was in 1979. I was four years old. Four years old? Yes, four years old when we moved to Texas. And from there, my my parents became missionaries, and but they had no clue strictly from what the missionary talked about and and what BBTI was doing. And they had the faith and really didn't have the plan. They just knew that's the place they needed to go. And from there, they we were me. My parents were missionaries in Mexico. And we come from back from there, and it's the next step. And so it's just a series of things that led to me being here. If my parents don't take that step of faith, I'm not here. I'm not in Texas. I don't know where I'm at. But my life looks drastically different because of some of those faithful steps. My parents have taken it. And I have to be honest with you. Um, as we talk about our obedience before understanding, that is something that I struggle a lot with. As I look past my parents are a great example because they have lived their life by faith. And, you know, in in everyday terms, it's worked out really good for them. You know, good for them. But sometimes that's very challenging when we're put to the test. Now, mind you, when my parents moved, they had four kids. Abraham took his wife, took his nephew. Let's hit the road. That's what my parents did. When we went to Mexico, we drove to Mexico in an old Chevy pickup, a single cab. It had a camper shell on the back. And my brother, my sister, and I, we rode in the back in the bed of the truck with a camper shell over it all the way to Mexico. My oldest brother, he was oldest, so he got to sit in the front with my parents. So, you know, that is that's kind of Abraham Faith there. What's where do I need to go? What do I need to do? There's many times of stories my dad would say of when they went to the mountains and and tried to help those that, you know, it was leave our town or you'll be killed. You know, don't let the sun set here. And they're trying to help, but with machine guns, guns leave. So a lot of those things. And then what if we look at Peter in Matthew 14, 28 through 31? Peter, how many of us say this? Peter says, Lord, if it's you, Peter replied, Tell me to come to on the water. Lord says, Come, he's he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and began to sink and cry out loud. Lord, save me. Immediately Jesus reached out of his hand, out his hand, and caught him. You have little faith, he said. Why do you doubt? And we go, Well, Peter, that was, you know, that was Jesus saying, Come on, how why would you do that? Why would you doubt that? But we doubt that in every day, in our everyday life. We start to have a little trouble, and we start to are we start to sink a little bit, and then we start to doubt, and we cry out, Lord, save me. We stepped out in faith, but then we start to sink a little bit, and now we think, Well, where'd he go? He's still there. So in in Peter, it was one word, one step onto the water. And then what about Mary in Luke? One, you will conceive. There was confusion before clarity, obedience before explanation. So why does you know God doesn't show us the whole staircase? If you think of faith and and obedience, we don't get to see the whole staircase. We don't get to see where it's going. We just get to see the step in front of us. And and we're just asked to step on that step. And so why does God do it this way? Because understanding, understanding builds confidence in ourselves. If we understand the whole roadmap, I am confident I can get there. But obedience builds confidence in God because we take the step not knowing what this next step is going to lead to. And the next step is going to lead to. What if we were like that? What if God's got our hand and we are full steam ahead, knowing that because that that person that is blind, running with the one that sees, they trust them completely. Otherwise, they would not be running full speed ahead with them. And we need to be the same. You know, we're a paralympic. Close our eyes and run full steam ahead because God's got us. And our faith grows when we learn to trust God's character, his faithfulness, his loving, he's caring. Even when we don't understand his plan, we know his character. It's just like the blind person running with the person it sees. They know who they are, they know their character, they know they care about them. They're going to be right there for them. They're not going to leave them. That's what God does for us. So why do we resist obedience? Well, because we're human and we like to be in control. Sometimes faith is we don't have control of the next thing. We fear making the wrong choice. What if this isn't the right choice? We don't want to risk disappointment. We want certainty. We don't want trust. When we moved from synergy to here, there was real no certainty. Kim said over and over, there's none of space. We can't do it. It's not going to work. You're not going to fit everything in here. All the things there's no certainty at all. That I also felt that same way too. That, you know, I don't know how it's going to work. So we say, Well, I'll obey when I'm sure. I'll move when I understand. I'll follow when it feels safe. Obedience starts to create the safety. It creates the safety and clarity we're waiting for. So if if we're obedient, then it starts to create what we're looking for. But first, we have to be obedient. And obedience is really an act of trust. It's not it's not blindness, it's trust. Trust in God's character. His character never changes. Our circumstances in life will change, but God's character never changes. So obedience is not ignoring wisdom. It's choosing to trust over fear. Because why do we not take that next step? Because we're not sure what that next step is attached to. Is it attached to falling rock? Is it attached to an anchor? What is it? But obedience is saying, I trust you, Lord, that you will be with me in that next step, no matter what that next step looks like. And really it's saying, and that's what it's saying, God, I don't see the full path, but I trust you enough to take the next step. And that's why I was thinking about this, and about thinking, how do we know what God wants us to do? A lot of times we do that through prayer. And we pray, you know, what do we want to do? But I kind of feel as I was thinking about this this week, and I was thinking about the next step. And I think sometimes we pray here and there, and we pray, God help me do this. And and a lot of times our prayers are even more so when we're in a bigger need. When we're when everything's going right, we might not communicate as well. So, but somehow we're really shocked when we pray for something we're really looking for, a decision we're trying to make, and go, well, God didn't answer. I don't know what he's doing, he didn't say anything. I was looking for this sign from the universe, I was looking for this, I was looking for that, he didn't say anything. But as I as I was thinking about this week, I thought sometimes he always answers, but sometimes it's in an the way he answered, we didn't know how God answers us. So in saying that, is what I mean is if we're in constant communication with as we pray, we begin to realize how God communicates with us. Sometimes we're easily communicate, he can communicate through a thought, through an idea. Maybe it's someone else saying a word. Maybe it's you being on here and you catching something that I say that resonates that goes, that's an answer to a prayer. But it was communicated in a different way. And sometimes if we don't have that connection, if we're not praying and learning how that communication back and forth goes, we miss what he's telling us in the way that he's telling us. So what he didn't answer. Well, we weren't in communication enough, I think, sometimes to recognize that. Because, you know, I gotta be honest, I've prayed a lot in the past. Nothing happened. I didn't, I didn't see nothing. God didn't show up. And as I reflect, and I think, I think he did. Maybe I wasn't recognizing his communication, I wasn't understanding how that was being communicated to me. I looked at it like he wasn't there, he didn't answer, he didn't tell me what to do. I I think as Kim and I prayed, we didn't really have a, as we moved into this space, we didn't have a concrete answer. But I think there were answers, and I don't think even at that time, we were able to see those answers. And we we took the next step. And but but I think the more we communicate with him, just think about with somebody you love. When you really communicate with each other on that, don't you get to know each other like, oh, I know what she's about to say, I know what he's about to say, I know what they're about to say, I know how that's about to come come out. Oh, yeah, that's how they usually answer me. Like some if somebody texts you, you know they're maybe a one or two word texter. You go, oh, that's just how they communicate. They're not mad at me, they're not upset at me. That's just how they communicate. Okay, cool. And so I think the more we're in a prayerful relationship with God, like he wants us to be, we can better become better communicators. And we can better hear, be on the receiving end of what we're being told. And so our obedience comes from that. It doesn't, we don't have to, he's not going to show us the whole picture. We don't get to see the snow globe and the everything here. We just see the next step. As we talked about, it's just like if you have a flashlight on your iPhone or your Samsung, you can only see so far, but you still take the next step because you can clearly see that. So let me take that. So that that's kind of the challenge this week is where in your life right now are you holding back because you don't understand the whole thing. You don't understand the whole what you're praying for. But what is the next step you can take? What is the next small step that God is inviting you to take through communication of prayer? Through your prayer, what is that next step? And the great thing is, it'll take care of itself. God takes care of the path. All we have to do is be responsible to take the step. And once we take that step, we'll be amazed by when we take that step, we're gonna see the next step to take. The next step to take. And it may not end anywhere where you thought it was going to, but it's gonna end up somewhere way better than you thought it was because our mind is limited. God's is infinite, unlimited, and he has great things available for us and ready, waiting for. We just have to be able to take the next step. We have to be obedient in knowing what taking the next step, not complete understanding. So be obedient is really my challenge to each of us is what's the next small step that you can take to be obedient? Don't worry about the big things. We talked about baby steps. What's the next small obedient step you can take? And you'll find that no matter how small it is, there's gonna be another small one you can take. And you know what that builds, just like the small weights you lift and eventually you lift big ones, when you have you're gonna be able to take bigger steps and bigger steps and bigger steps because you know he was faithful in the small step, he was faithful in the small step because his character didn't change, and he's gonna be faithful in this big scary step too, because all of those have led to the next step. And and the road and the journey might end somewhere different, but that next step is what we have to be concerned about. So that's my challenge to you this week is how can you do that? So, not to keep you too long, will lead us in prayer, and then you can go on about your wonderful day. Dear Helen Father, thank you for bringing all of us together. I just pray that you watch over each one as we find them in different places today in vehicles and homes and work and wherever they may be, Lord. I just pray that you be with them, you guide them, and you share with them their next step and that that that communication is rich and that it's communication between you and them, that that they might see where you're leading them to the next step. And I pray, Lord, that we just take that next step in in faithful and obedience, knowing that your character never changes. You love us, you care for us, and you always want what's best for us. And so I just pray that you open our eyes, that we can see that through our communication, through our honesty with you. That leads to the next step. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And thank you to each of you so much for joining us today on SoulFit. I look forward to seeing you right here next time on SoulFit.