Obeying God. Is it like eating vegetables? We think we ought to, but we're not enthusiastic about it! There's a Bible story that offers a different view of obedience. In it, a willingness to obey turns failure into fulfillment.

Christ Jesus is preaching from a boat to people who have gathered on the shore nearby to hear him. Fishermen are also there, cleaning their nets, preparing to end their day's work. After Jesus finishes preaching, he directs Simon, one of the fishermen, to cast his net again. Simon responds, "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net" (Luke 5:5). Then Simon and his partners find a catch of fish greater than their nets can hold.

When Simon's human fathoming was replaced by obedience, defeat was turned into victory. In this case Simon may have obeyed mostly because of an intuition that he should do as this great Teacher had told him. But on this same day, he would be called by Jesus to become his disciple. He would begin to learn more of that obedience to God which is born of love and understanding.

Christ Jesus' life shows us that obeying God is natural and leads to a fulfillment of our true purpose. Jesus understood his sonship with God and always acted under His direction. This complete conformity to God's will lay behind the healing work he did and supported him through the crucifixion to his resurrection and ascension. Jesus never conceded authority to forces beyond God's control. His activity was at one with divine power. He said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" (John 5:19).

The human Jesus is no longer here, but the Christ, the God-impelled message he preached and proved, is here. And it is leading us to a higher obedience. The Christ reveals to us the one Father-Mother God, forever loving and providing for His offspring, man. As we listen to and follow Christ, we understand what we are obeying. We learn that God is the only power and the source of all good. God's plan for man is abundant good because God is Love. That's why we can obey Him with eagerness and joy.

What would suggest that obeying God is not practical or productive? It is a belief in an independent, material intelligence, cut off from God and reliant on its own physical senses. To thought mesmerized by this false belief, human opinions appear more profitable than faith. The effort to obey God's will then becomes a difficult struggle with one's own will or with a fear of losing one's identity. But rebellion against God or blind submission to Him through fear implies a God of tyranny and wrath.

The Science of Christ releases us from these lies about God and man, as well as from the fears accompanying them. It reveals God to be unerring divine Principle, invariable Love, and man to be the expression of Principle. Expressing God is the natural and spontaneous activity of man. As numbers are needed to express mathematics, man is needed to express the one intelligence, divine Mind. Numbers obey the laws of mathematics but never lose their individuality. Similarly, man obeys divine Principle but never loses his individuality. Giving up self-will is not giving up one's identity but learning more of what this identity really is.

In a commentary on verses from John (1:12, 13), Mary Baker Eddy asks: "Is man's spiritual sonship a personal gift to man, or is it the reality of his being, in divine Science? Man's knowledge of this grand verity gives him power to demonstrate his divine Principle, which in turn is requisite in order to understand his sonship, or unity with God, good. A personal requirement of blind obedience to the law of being, would tend to obscure the order of Science, unless that requirement should express the claims of the divine Principle" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 181).

Mrs. Eddy herself learned much about hearing and following God's commands. Through her obedience to the "still small voice," she perceived the spiritual laws of God and man that Jesus demonstrated in his healing work. She went on to record these laws, or rules for proving God's presence, and to test them through healing. Through her discovery, Christian Science, any genuine seeker can understand the spiritual meaning of the Bible.

We may not always see immediately where God's direction is leading us, but if, like Simon, we are willing to trust, we will gather the blessing. The more we understand the power of divine Principle, and the more experience we have in following it, the easier it is for us to recognize and be obedient to God's commands. We will find that His law protects us from dangers we may not even see.

I once learned a lesson in this kind of obedience. My family, including three small children, were visiting friends and had finished dinner. The children were excused to change into their bathing suits, but they were to return to us before having some playtime in our hosts' pool. (All doors to the house had been locked by our hostess after we arrived.)

I was enjoying the after-dinner conversation with other adults. Nevertheless, something impelled me to leave the pleasant time I was having and check on the children. Missing one, I found her in the pool, struggling in water over her head. (She was five years old and did not know how to swim yet.) I pulled her out, and although she had swallowed some water, she was soon comforted. I knew I had been moved by God, and was I grateful!

Looking back on the experience, I could see that I was not making a personal choice, for I really did not want to leave that pleasant conversation. While I had not been consciously praying at the time, I had learned enough in Christian Science about God to realize I had to respond to the intuition. I knew that a power beyond the human governed all, that this power was good, and that I could trust it. That made it irresistible!

We don't practice obedience in anticipation of some reward like a great quantity of fish, or out of fear, but to show forth man's spiritual identity as the child of God, divine Love.

The feeble oars of our own efforts are not enough to keep us afloat during the storms of human experience, but we can listen for God's direction and express our natural obedience to it. As we do, we will find our needs fulfilled beyond human hopes, as those fishermen of long ago found their nets full beyond expectations.