Several years ago I was talking to a couple and they were thinking about divorcing.  They had no reason whatsoever to divorce, and finally after talking to them for about an hour the lady looked at me and said, You know, Ed, God just wants me to be happy and I’m not happy.  I said Ma’am, God does not want your happiness. Do you know what God wants?  He wants your obedience.  That’s what God wants.  Because when I am obedient, the feelings will follow.  The Bible says I will have joy and my joy will be made full.

Parents, know what?  If you said to yourself, “You know what, I just want my kids to be happy.  I don’t care about obedience.  I just want them to be happy.”  Man we would have a wild family dynamic, wouldn’t we?  Parents, we want our children to obey us. Kids, remember mom and dad know more than you do, and when you obey them you will be joyful and your joy one day will be made full.  Because you’ll look back maybe years from now and say, wow, mom was pretty smart.  Dad had it pretty together.  Now I understand why she told me that.  Now I understand why he had that rule.

The same is true with our perfect heavenly parent as well.  In the book of Judges, chapter 21, verse 25, it has one of the most penetrating and powerful verses in all of Scripture that talks about where we are as a nation.  It talks about relativism, it talks about pragmatism, it talks about subjectivity.  Let me read it to you.  “There was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  Wow, is that where we are or what?  There’s no king so everyone does these days what’s right in their own eyes.