“If

you love me,

you will keep

my commandments .

John 14:15 

Obedience is  agape proof. Love unto death proof.   Proof of a life dug down deep not living in shallows.  Proof of a stake driven straight painted blaze orange.  Here.  Here I am in the life of the ONE I love who holds all things.  Obedience is in the keeping.  The keeping close, holding tight, breathing after the heart of God.  

Obedience is knowing.  The way a kayaker knows the face of a river, which currents will take you through, which will smash you bloody and lifeless on the rocks. Obedience is knowing the path that is narrow when there is no light at midnight and souls are following you.  Knowing the way his steps feel to your bare feet resting in the imprints.

Obedience is choice.  Choice in the place I fix the gaze of my eyes- the gates of my soul.  I become what I behold.  I choose what I see.  How I see. Obedience is watching.  Expectant like the dawn birds for the first ray, coaxing the sunlight with hope.  Watching for him in the room.  Asking what he is accomplishing in the lives before me, and partnering with his actions in love.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John 13:34

Calvary love compels me to obey. When I gaze upon the loving well, and to the end, through the piercing, stripes and thorns, I see the battle against the greatest enemy, and my terror conquered on my behalf.  When I see, I know how he loved me-agape way-unto death.  Through death, out of death and into life. Life that leaped into me at my “yes I believe”. Life that lives to die to my will, and glorify the Father. Life that lives to abide.

“As I have loved you” -love laid down in a life offered freely. Not robbed, not demanded, not wasted-offered. Choice, obedience, faith.  If I obey, I love.