{"id":2435,"date":"2011-12-18T05:01:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T10:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/?p=2435"},"modified":"2012-01-23T11:44:28","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T16:44:28","slug":"joseph-chooses-to-obey-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Joseph chooses to obey God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Most of us understand that obeying God is what we should want to do. \u00a0There are some decisions that probably won’t change our lives. \u00a0When I go into a\u00a0restaurant, I’m handed a menu. \u00a0 I must make a choice about what I’m going to eat. \u00a0My husband used to tell me, “Linda, it’s not your last meal. \u00a0Just choose something.”<\/p>\n

But not everything in our lives should be a choice. \u00a0There are some things and some people that I should obey–speed laws, my husband, my boss.\u00a0 God wants us to learn how to obey Him in the same way that Joseph learned.<\/p>\n

In Matthew 1:24 we read about Joseph, “<\/strong>When Joseph woke up, he did what the Lord\u2019s angel had told him to do. Joseph took Mary as his wife.”<\/p>\n

Mary was going to have a baby and the baby didn’t belong to Joseph. \u00a0Being a good man, Joseph wanted to do good to Mary. \u00a0He had decided that he would send her away; and she would have the baby. \u00a0But an angel came to him and told Joseph that God was the father of this baby. \u00a0In spite of the obvious objections and misgivings, Joseph decided to obey God.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Joseph did have a choice but his choice was to obey. \u00a0Obedience was an option; but if he did obey he would be in big trouble. \u00a0I can imagine that even after the angel had spoken to\u00a0Joseph, he probably had concerns about obeying.<\/p>\n

He knew his life would be changed forever. \u00a0He knew that this baby was not his child. \u00a0His family, friends and neighbors would suspect him for getting Mary pregnant before they were married. \u00a0He knew that for a lifetime he would live in shame because no one would understand.<\/p>\n

Obeying God may take many forms. \u00a0When we get ready to make an important decision, such as buying a house or changing jobs, who do we want to please? \u00a0Our husband or wife, our children, our boss\u00a0or ourselves. \u00a0Do we think about pleasing God?<\/p>\n

When we are ready to make a smaller decision, when we are with our boy\/girl friend, who do we want to please? Ourselves? Our boy\/girlfriend? \u00a0Or the Lord?<\/p>\n

When it is time to be generous in regard to our money? Do we want to please God. \u00a0Or do we want to soothe our conscious?<\/p>\n

Joseph\u00a0did obey because God sent an angel to instruct him. \u00a0Good sense said that Joseph would not have a good life, if he chose to obey God. \u00a0Joseph made the right choice. \u00a0He married Mary. \u00a0For eternity, Joseph will be honored for that decision. \u00a0Yet, he could not see the future and making the decision was not easy. \u00a0There are times that we obey only because we know that it is what God wants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of us understand that obeying God is what we should want to do. \u00a0There are some decisions that probably won’t change our lives. \u00a0When I go into a\u00a0restaurant, I’m handed a menu. \u00a0 I must make a choice about what I’m going to eat. \u00a0My husband used to tell me, “Linda, it’s not your…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,334,20,40,186,49,4,41],"tags":[352,690,21,688,739,7,699,715,701,694,6],"class_list":["post-2435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-christmas","category-church","category-faith","category-hope","category-inspiration","category-simple-truths","category-spirituality","tag-angel-appearances","tag-autism-spectrum","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-christmas","tag-developmental-disabilities-2","tag-faith","tag-hope","tag-inspiration","tag-intellectual-disability","tag-simple-scriptural-truths"],"yoast_head":"\nJoseph chooses to obey God - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joseph chooses to obey God - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most of us understand that obeying God is what we should want to do. \u00a0There are some decisions that probably won’t change our lives. \u00a0When I go into a\u00a0restaurant, I’m handed a menu. \u00a0 I must make a choice about what I’m going to eat. \u00a0My husband used to tell me, “Linda, it’s not your…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-18T10:01:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-01-23T16:44:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/files\/2011\/12\/choice.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda G. Howard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Joseph chooses to obey God - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Joseph chooses to obey God - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith","og_description":"Most of us understand that obeying God is what we should want to do. \u00a0There are some decisions that probably won’t change our lives. \u00a0When I go into a\u00a0restaurant, I’m handed a menu. \u00a0 I must make a choice about what I’m going to eat. \u00a0My husband used to tell me, “Linda, it’s not your…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html","og_site_name":"A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith","article_published_time":"2011-12-18T10:01:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-01-23T16:44:28+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/files\/2011\/12\/choice.jpg"}],"author":"Linda G. Howard","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html","name":"Joseph chooses to obey God - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/files\/2011\/12\/choice.jpg","datePublished":"2011-12-18T10:01:43+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-23T16:44:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/#\/schema\/person\/a10d3530d8432a656d648135fe6da739"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/files\/2011\/12\/choice.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/files\/2011\/12\/choice.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/12\/joseph-chooses-to-obey-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Joseph chooses to obey God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/","name":"A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Linda Howard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/#\/schema\/person\/a10d3530d8432a656d648135fe6da739","name":"Linda G. Howard","description":"Linda G. Howard is the best-selling and award-winning author of four books, including MOTHERS ARE PEOPLE, TOO and THE SECRET LIFE OF A HOUSEWIFE. Currently, she serves as area director of The Special Gathering, a ministry within the mentally challenged community. Additionally, she is the co-publisher and editor of CONNECTING POINT, the ministry newsletter. Her husband is a retired aerospace technologist who worked for NASA. They have three children and four grandchildren.","sameAs":["http:\/\/specialgathering.wordpress.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/author\/lhoward"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2435"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2438,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions\/2438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}