https://www.clintmurphy.realtor https://www.clintmurphy.realtor/obedience <div data-rss-type="text"> <h3> <span> Obedience </span> </h3> </div> <div data-rss-type="text"> <p> <span> Most of us don't have an information problem. We have an obedience problem. </span> </p> <p> <span> <span>  </span> <br/> </span> </p> <p> <span> Jesus told a parable about a master who entrusted three servants with his money before leaving on a long journey. He didn't give them instructions. He gave them resources and expected them to do something with them. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> Two of them did. One buried it. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> When the master returned, the two who acted heard the same thing: "well done, good and faithful servant." Not well done for being careful. Not well done for protecting what you had. Well done for doing something with what you were given. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> The third servant handed back exactly what he received. Safe. Untouched. And his reason: I was afraid. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> Fear can be dressed up as responsibility. Caution can be dressed up as faithfulness. But this wasn't holy fear. This was self-protection. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> The master called it wicked and lazy. Not because he lost anything. But because he did nothing. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> A lot of us aren't walking away from God. We're not in rebellion. We're burying things. The conversations we know we need to have. The steps we know we need to take. The obedience we keep pushing away until conditions feel safer, until fear settles down, until we feel more ready. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> The fear doesn't go away first. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> Obedience comes before clarity. Action comes before confidence. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> The servant wasn't waiting for the right moment. He was looking for an excuse. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> There's a cost to obedience. But there's a cost to disobedience too. We just feel it later. The painful part of the parable isn't the rebuke. It's that the servant thought he was being responsible the whole time. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> Buried talent doesn't look like fear. Sometimes it looks like wisdom and caution. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> But the master doesn't return asking how well we protected what we had. He returns asking what we did with it. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> The return has always required the risk. That order doesn't change just because we don't like it. </span> <br/> <br/> <span> "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'" </span> <br/> <span> — Matthew 25:23 </span> </p> </div> Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:27:05 GMT https://www.clintmurphy.realtor/obedience