Growth Hope

Outcomes vs. Obedience

In business, we talk a lot about the “bottom line.”  It’s important to know the final result, the end of the story, the status of the scoreboard. Whatever it took to get there, at the end of the day you want to know the success or failure of the actions that were taken. Increasingly organizations also use what are called “leading indicators” – measurements that indicate what the final result will be before we actually get there. Much like the “bottom line” these measurements look at the outcome of the decisions that are made. Organizations focus on results because we tend to think they will be a good indicator of whether the decisions made and processes used were the right ones.

Like many things in God’s economy, however, He turns this upside down. One place where we see this is  Ezekiel 2:5-7. God tells Ezekiel to go to a “rebellious house” and indicates that he will be persecuted and ignored. However, God also says, “And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.”

Can you imagine that? God says, before Ezekiel even goes, that they are rebellious and indicates that they won’t be receptive to the message he has been sent to proclaim. Yet God still tells him to go, because Ezekiel’s job is to obey God. It’s God’s job to worry about the results.

It’s an important truth for us to remember as well. It can be tempting to try and think through all the likely outcomes when we are facing a decision. We want to plot and strategize to achieve the maximum results. However, if God has told us clearly that we are to do something, we need to simply do it. The One who holds the stars in His hands and commands the hearts of kings will manage the outcomes according to His purpose and pleasure.

 

How does trusting God for the results change our mindset? Why is it important to remember to obey even if we can’t anticipate the likely outcome?

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Growth

Inside Out

Every once in a while the cleaning instructions on an article of clothing will state to “wash inside out.” Those are odd directions, if you think about it, because people don’t see the reverse side of your clothes. They see the outside – the place with all the decoration and adornment. Yet the manufacturers know that if the inside of our clothes are cleaned, this will be reflected on the outside. It may seem odd, but it’s also effective.

We, however, place a lot of significance on outward appearances, forgetting that what remains on the inside may not be what we expected. Looking at a beautiful house from the street, we may never guess that a disaster awaits inside. A family that appears to be loving and close, may be broken and distraught. We judge by what we can see – and often the reality of what’s happening on the inside is obscured from our view.

God, however, sees the heart. So His concern isn’t primarily on what our outside appearance looks like, but what’s going on on the inside. He cares about our thoughts, and our motives, our inclinations and our desires – knowing that if these things are aligned with His Word, then the part of our lives that people see will reflect that too.

Yet sometimes we try very hard just to make the outside pretty. We put on window dressing that makes it appear as if our hearts are aligned with God. We “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” so that in our own effort our lives look like they are conforming to God’s standards. And we may be effective at it for a while. Eventually, however, just as the truth of the broken family will emerge, the realities of our hearts will eventually be revealed.

This is why it’s so important that our lives are cleaned by His grace from the inside out – that our actions don’t just conform to God’s standards but our thoughts, our motives, our inclinations, and our desires do as well. As this is true, what’s reflected on the outside will also conform to His will.

 

Now it’s your turn ….If we focused on the fact that God looks at us from the inside out, how would our lives change?

 

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