Last time I wrote about asking — that God gives you all the answers, but He gives them one obedience at a time. This one is about the part nobody wants to talk about: the obedience you are already holding.
Because here is what I keep finding in my own life. Most of the time I am not waiting on God at all. God is waiting on me. There is a word sitting on my desk collecting dust, and I am on my knees asking for a new one.
The Man Who Forgot His Own Face
“For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”
James 1:24
Remember what a mirror was when James wrote that. Polished bronze. You had to angle it toward the light and hold still to see anything at all. Nobody glanced into a bronze mirror by accident.
So this is not a man who never saw himself. He looked on purpose. He saw clearly. And then he walked out the door and it was gone before he reached the street.
That is not an information problem. He was not under-taught. He heard it fine. It just never became anything.
Hearers Audit. Doers Build.
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
James 1:22
The Greek behind hearer is akroatēs — the word used for someone who sat in on the lectures. Present for the teaching, enrolled in nothing. Today we would say he audited the class. He showed up, took notes, left with no credit and no degree, and technically he was not lying when he told people he had studied under the man.
The word behind doer is poiētēs — and you already know it, because it is where we get the word poet. A maker. A producer. Someone who takes a thing that existed only as an idea and puts it into the world where it can be touched.
That is what God is asking of you. Not agreement. Manufacture. Take the word off the page and make it exist somewhere in your actual week — in your marriage, in your bank account, in how you speak to the person who works under you.
And notice the warning attached: deceiving your own selves. The self-deception is not that you think you are saved when you are not. It is subtler than that, and far more common. Hearing feels so much like doing that a man can spend years mistaking one for the other. You felt something real on Sunday. That feeling will pass for obedience for about six days.
The Most Spiritual-Sounding Form of Procrastination
Here is the trap I fall into. When the last word costs something, I go looking for a new one.
I will pray longer. I will read more. I will ask for confirmation, and then for confirmation of the confirmation. It looks like devotion from the outside. It is a stall. Nobody has ever accused a man on his knees of avoiding God.
But asking for more guidance while sitting on the guidance you already have is not humility. It is negotiation.
Saul Kept the Best of the Sheep
In 1 Samuel 15, Saul is told to destroy everything. He keeps the best of the flock. And when Samuel confronts him, Saul has an explanation ready — and it is a religious explanation. The people spared them, he says, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God.
Read that again. He disobeyed God and used worship as the alibi.
“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
1 Samuel 15:22
God is not impressed by the offering you brought instead. He asked for the thing He asked for.
Most of us never defy Him outright. We substitute. He says forgive your brother, so we give more. He says get out of that relationship, so we serve more. He says slow down and be present with your children, so we sign up for another ministry. The substitute is always something good — which is precisely what makes it work on us.
Both Men Heard the Same Sermon
We usually preach the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7 as believer versus unbeliever. But look at what Jesus actually said: whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them. Both men heard. Both were standing in the same crowd on the same mountain. Both could have quoted the sermon back to you.
The only variable in the entire parable is doing.
And here is the sober part. The storm does not reveal what you knew. It reveals what you built. You will not rise to the level of your theology in a crisis — you will fall to the level of what you actually practiced.
He Asks the Question Himself
“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”
Luke 6:46
That is not rhetorical. He wants an answer.
Lord means the one who gives the orders. You cannot call a man Lord and file His instructions under consider later. The title is not a compliment. It is a description of a relationship that either shows up on your calendar or does not exist at all.
Now Name It
You already know what it is. You knew before you finished the first paragraph.
And it is probably small. That is the frustrating part — it is almost never the dramatic thing. It is the apology you have drafted eleven times and never sent. The number you need to block. The tithe. The bottle. The conversation with your son that you keep pushing to a better week that never comes. The client you owe the truth to.
Do it in the next twenty-four hours. Not a plan to do it. Not a prayer about doing it. The thing itself.
Father, I do not need another word. I need to become a maker of the one You already gave me. Bring back to my mind the last thing I heard and left undone, and give me the spine to go do it today — before I talk myself into needing more clarity. Make me a doer.
You want the next answer? It is usually sitting on the other side of the last one.
The Personal Website of Edgar "Mark" Sotomayor also known as BALTHASAR BASILEIA 