The surest path into deep, living friendship with God is not found in striving to feel closer to Him, through reading your bible more or praying harder but instead found in responding to His voice by taking action on what He speaks. For His words are not distant instructions but invitations into shared life, each one an open door into communion. How the Lord loves to be invited into your life! Every step of obedience becomes a meeting place, every surrendered response a quiet exchange of trust, until what once felt like simple faithfulness begins to glow with holy wonder. Those who choose to move when He speaks discover a mystery that reshapes everything: His invitations are not merely tasks for servants to complete, but pathways designed for friends to walk WITH Him.
If you want to grow in friendship with Jesus, start here: obey the last thing He said to you. Not the ten-year plan. Not the imagined calling. The last whisper, the last nudge, the last conviction. Friendship grows every time you trust His voice enough to move.
As you start to understand the obedience that the Lord actually desires of you, you will most likely begin to hit some of your childhood ideologies of what a parent did or didn’t do in regards to your ability to obey. In order to walk in obedience righteously, it will require you to surrender your ideologies of how you were parented and correctly align your beliefs to the true, grounded, mysterious heart of Yahweh. There have been many different parenting styles but I am only going to speak from my testimony, so here’s a short example from my own lived experience of authoritarian parenting.
Authoritarian environments can quietly shape us to believe God is far off and controlling, watching for our failure instead of walking beside us. It also lends us to believe that God demands obedience from us.. “Or else”. I use the word “demand” very intentionally. To be demanding of someone is to require something of you or risk the loss of something else. The safety God offers through obedience is entirely different — it is the kind that invites us to wrestle, ask, and confess openly without fear of punishment or loss of love.
I want to present to you the difference between the English framework of obedience versus the God ordained idea of obedience. I want to pull back the veil to show you that we’re trying to wrap a modern English system-drenched ideology of this word around a non-English God. This false way of thinking causes us to perform and try to perfect ourselves in our own strength. One modern definition I read actually says “to do what someone in power or a system tells you to do” This is our culture’s perception of obedience to the Lord. It was definitely mine. This is probably most of our experiences of what obedience was supposed to look like. When in reality, the obedience that God requires of you, is to actively listen to what He says, trust His heart for you, and walk it out.
But what if you’re afraid to walk it out? What if you misheard Him? What if you obey and it goes poorly? These are not signs that you lack faith — they are invitations to discover what kind of Friend He truly is. Obedience is not a tightrope over punishment. It is a child learning to walk toward a Father who is not startled by missteps.
True authority never needs control or manipulation in order to follow through on what is revealed, because real authority produces freedom and willingness to participate through joy.
Understanding His ways does not often come before obedience; often it comes through it. Obedience gives us experience, and experience strengthens our faith. Many of us are waiting to feel certain before we move. But certainty is often the fruit of obedience, not the prerequisite. You may not feel anything at first. You may feel awkward, exposed, or unsure. Friendship deepens not when feelings swell, but when trust steps forward anyway.
As we follow Him, that lived experience gives substance to what we once only believed, and what once felt like obligation begins to transform into delight. We discover that obedience was never meant to be a rigid checklist, but a joyful process of learning, trusting, and rising again with the One who leads us well.
Let’s break down what this idea of obedience means to better understand just how far it is from religious duty and rigid controlling checklists. Obedience is the beautiful fruit of a deep mutual love for the Lord as we trust in His deep love for us. This lavish love for us enables us to take steps towards His will for us.
This is the definition of the word “shemoa’ - In Hebrew, hearing and doing are intertwined. You can not separate this from love. To “shema” means more than simply hearing words. It means allowing those words to sink deep enough to form understanding and from that understanding, conviction. Conviction then becomes the breeding ground for response. Shema is hearing that moves you, shapes you, and calls something forth from within.
Shema is not passive. It is covenantal. It binds the heart to what has been spoken.
And when the heart is bound, the life must follow. Sometimes “shema” looks like sending the text you’ve been avoiding. Sometimes it looks like apologizing first. Sometimes it looks like resting when productivity screams otherwise. Sometimes it looks like starting the project before you feel ready. Obedience is rarely dramatic. It is often deeply ordinary, right where you are!
Integrity in friendship requires that you do what you say you will do and say what you mean. This is the call of the new covenant — a covenant not sustained by rule-keeping, but by hearts made whole, where word and action are no longer divided.
The action that we DO take is not based upon performance for grades in our work but rather invitations to do the work WITH Him. To walk in godly obedience takes practice. Sometimes He will give you time to process the action you need to take, but other times He will just push you off the cliff so that you can learn how to fly.
You will not grow in friendship by analyzing His voice. You will grow by responding to it. Even imperfectly. Even slowly. Even with trembling. He is not measuring you from a distance; He is walking with you in the doing. Every small act of trust opens another layer of His heart to you. And I don’t know about you, but there’s no place I would rather be than where His heart is.
