Obedience Causes Momentum: Sailing in the Wind of God

In the past, I’ve shared a lot about obedience (see, for example, Exceedingly Abundantly). What I want to focus on now, though, is the impact of your obedience. That is: obedience causes momentum.

When you take one step in faith with God, even when you don’t understand and when it doesn’t make any sense, it causes the pieces of your puzzle to begin to come together. Momentum is not about speed, it’s about taking each step that is already ordered for you with force and strength.

Instructions that make no sense can lead to more than you can imagine.

There’s a story in the Bible you may or may not be familiar with. It’s the one where Simon had been fishing all night trying to make a catch. On one night in particular, the Bible says Simon had been “toiling” all night and caught nothing. Then, Jesus instructed him to let down his net one more time. Simon’s obedience to God in this moment was displayed in his response: “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” When Simon let down his net, he and the men he was with caught so many fish that their net was breaking, and they had to get help just to carry the catch. See Luke 5:4-7.

This is the impact of obedience. Simon had been “toiling” all night meaning that he was working extremely hard and exhausted from the labor. He had been doing the exact same thing over and over again and there was no result. Why would it make any sense to do this same thing, that yielded no fruit, once more? How could it be possible that the same thing that caused no movement just a moment ago is all of a sudden supposed to cause movement now? Simon acknowledged this in his response to Jesus, yet he didn’t let what he didn’t understand stop him from taking the step Jesus asked him to take. And the result of this thing that made no sense? More than he could even handle. Probably the largest catch he’s ever made. Obedience.

It’s not always the things we don’t have physical energy for, it’s also the things we no longer have the mental or emotional capacity for that keep us from wanting to try again with God. But we have to develop a “nevertheless, at Your word” mentality in this season. We have to have such a reverence for God that we don’t rely on what we’re able to understand when He gives us an instruction. Obedience causes momentum. Obedience in the first step that makes no sense causes strength in the next step. Obedience in the first step that makes no sense causes force in the next.

When we take a step with God, His Spirit throws us into the momentum of His will. It causes a result we could have never achieved in our own strength or by our own logic.

Obedience in the mundane invokes the Wind of God in your life.

This doesn’t just apply to what we consider to be the “big” things in life. It applies to the small, seemingly insignificant things. There have been several moments in my life where mentally, I wanted more for myself – more discipline, more action behind the impactful life that I knew was in me – but physically, I didn’t have the energy or the strength to actually do anything. I felt stuck. I remember constantly praying and asking God to help me have more discipline, more focus, and more energy to do these things. He answered, but what always happened was that I had to take that first step - whether it was turning the TV off, putting my phone away, changing into the workout clothes, beginning to write the first sentence, or spending just one hour on a dream - and before I knew it, I found myself doing the very thing that I lacked strength to do and there was a noticeable Wind behind me while doing it. Your obedience matters, even in the mundane, because your life is a culmination of the small, seemingly insignificant moments.

The impact won’t always be visible. In fact, it often won’t be visible, at least not at first.  But when you are in tune with the movement of the Holy Spirit in your life, you can sense His Wind. I pray in the name of Jesus that you would become sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit in your life. Continuously ask God to drown out the noise so that you can hear Him.

Your obedience doesn’t just honor God, it causes your life to be shaped in the way it’s supposed to be and produce the fruit that it’s meant to produce. It gives you strength. It highlights your next ordered step. It causes alignment. It causes momentum.