God, What Do I Get if I Obey You?

Recently I have been crying out to God that I don’t want all my rewards in this life. Once my mother found me weeping in my hotel room and asked what was wrong.

“I don’t want to receive all my rewards on this earth so that when I get to heaven all I have is a crummy rhinestone Jesus pin,” I told her. “When Jesus passes by there will be many wonderful people throwing crowns at His feet, and there I’ll be, throwing this dumb rhinestone pin, picking it up and throwing it down, again and again and again!”

I don’t want to get all my rewards here on earth! I want some things saved for me.

I want to do some secret things. I want to do some obediences. I want to cross some lines knowing that only God knew what it cost me to cross them.

Why Can’t I Minister in My Muumuu?

One of the things the Lord called me to do last year was go to Australia. Now, I am not a traveling kind of person. I am a homebody.

I don’t like to leave my house, not even to shop. I like to get in my muumuu and do mail-order. In fact, if I could minister in my muumuu I’d be the happiest person in the world.

I decided I would go to Australia if God would give me peace about going. But it wasn’t my peace that was unsettled; it was my flesh.

I tried to make a deal with the Lord. I said, “If the people who asked me to minister send me a business-class plane ticket, I will know that You definitely want me to go to Australia.”

Within five minutes of that prayer the telephone rang. The person on the other end said that although it was 4 o’clock in the morning there, she woke up and felt impressed to call and tell me that she was going to send me a business-class ticket to Australia.

So I told the Lord I would go—and I would even shut up and quit complaining. This was His will, and it was good. I could just hear the Holy Spirit saying, “Well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

During the flight, I got out my praise-and-worship tapes and began to worship the Lord. As I did this, He spoke to me saying, “Cathy, that which you called uneasiness of your spirit wasn’t a lack of peace; it was rebellion.

“You called it something spiritual, but you were behaving like Jonah. You just didn’t want to go.”

When you are flying miles high in the sky with nothing but water far below you, it’s very easy to repent, so I did—over and over again.

Right Place, Right Time

The first meeting we had was in the Australian capital of Canberra. The Lord gave me a word: There’s a witch in this place.

I said, “I don’t know anything about witchcraft, but I know there’s a witch here and you’ve come to put curses on this conference. There is a curse that has been sent out over your life, and within 30 days you will be dead if you do not come forward and publicly give your life to Christ.”

At the end of the meeting a young woman came forward. Her shaved head was wrapped in a bandanna. She was heavily body-pierced and tattooed.

She said, “I’m the witch. I’ve been sent by the coven in this city to put curses on every one of you. As you spoke, I knew it was me; I also know who has placed the curse against me.”

I told her we would pray and break that curse through the power and authority of the name of Jesus. As I moved toward her, she pulled back her fist to strike me.

Now that type of response may be fine for other preachers, but I wasn’t ready for that; I really didn’t want to be hit. Still, the Lord said, “Press in and put your arms around her. Tell her that I love her.” When I obeyed, she screamed and fell to the floor.

The Spirit of the Lord spoke to me and told me that she had never known the pure love of a man or a woman. She had lived a lesbian lifestyle and had been abused by her mother and father. When I asked her to confirm that, she began to sob. My ministry team and I put our arms around her, loved her and prayed for her deliverance.

As I left the meeting that night, the Lord spoke to me and said, “And to think you almost missed it!”

Next we went to a church in a small city outside Sydney. As I stood to minister, the Lord spoke to me about a young woman in the front row. “Young lady, stand up,” I told her.

“The Spirit of the Lord says, ‘You’re engaged to the wrong man. If you will obey the Spirit of God and break this off, I will give you the man of God that I have prepared for you.’”

On our way to lunch after the service, the pastor asked me if I knew who the young woman was. I said I didn’t. “She’s my daughter,” he said.

Oh, me! I thought. I must be going now. Just give me my skippy burger, and I will leave.

He told me that for two years he and his wife had been trying to tell her that this man was not the one God had for her. “She won’t listen to us,” he said. “We have cried out to God and said, ‘If it takes Your sending a prophet, do whatever it takes, Lord, but spare our daughter.’”

Sitting there in the back seat, the Spirit of God spoke to me: “And to think you almost missed it because you didn’t want to obey Me and sacrifice two weeks of your life!”

Possessing the Promise

Just as there were things God had prepared for me in Australia, I believe there are things that the Spirit of God desires for you. There are things God wants you to do, and you are a split-second decision away from either walking into the will of God or shrinking back in fear.

Possessing the promise means saying, “I don’t care what you do, devil. You are not going to make me crawl into a hole. I am not going to run away. I am not going to back down. My God has promised!”

When I see what God has entrusted to frail men and women who could say yes or no, it makes me love Him all the more. It also makes me realize my own tendency to say, “God, there are others who are much more equipped, who know the Word far better than I do, who have a greater anointing than I have”—to let my fear and insecurity hold me back from obeying God.

I don’t want to give in, and I don’t want you to, either! Let’s have the courage to cross the line for God. We won’t want to miss what He has waiting for us just around the corner—or maybe in Australia.

Cathy Lechner is the author of I’m Trying to Sit at His Feet, but Who’s Going to Cook Dinner? and Couldn’t We Just Kill ’em and Tell God They Died? She ministers with humor and prophetic anointing in churches and conferences around the world. Adapted from I Hope God’s Promises Come to Pass Before My Body Parts Go South by Cathy Lechner, copyright 1998. Published by Creation House. Used by permission.