Obedience, Blessings, and Pink Bicycles

Recently, God asked me to obey Him in a difficult thing. I was something that, to an outside observer, may not have seemed logical or even necessary; however, that didn’t matter in this decision. I heard God asking me to obey, and so I had to, regardless of its logic, consequences or effects upon anyone other than myself and my relationship with Him. Let me assure you that this was not something that I wanted to do. Nor am I always so eager to be obedient about these kinds of things.

Fortunately, God has also recently been reminding me of a lot of promises, that: “Surely O Lord, you bless the righteous”(Psalm 5:12) and, “Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing”(Psalm 34:10). And of course there’s everyone’s favorite, Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

These verses do make it easier to do the difficult thing when God asks. They are the reminders that God doesn’t ask us to follow Him without reward or provision from His hand. I have to confess, though, that in trying to delight myself in the Lord, I begin to fear that the “good things” and the “desires of my heart” that God promises to give me will not actually be the things I really want.

Let me explain.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I wanted a pink Strawberry Shortcake bicycle. The one with the pink and purple streamers on the handlebars. The Strawberry Shortcake decals on the wheelcovers. The little pink clangy bell and cute little basket on the front.

So, for one birthday, our family 8mm movie reel shows my mom carrying me out to the garage to receive what I clearly thought was going to be the long-pined-for bicycle. Instead, the film shows me burying my head in her chest, tears puffing up my face, my hair in stringy ponytails covering my upset eyes.

I didn’t get the bike.

I did get A bike, just not the one I wanted. My gift was a white bike, with a red, white and blue banana seat. No basket. No streamers. And training wheels, of course. It was a hand-me-down that had belonged to a friend’s daughter who’d outgrown it.

Like all kids in these sorts of situations, I got over the disappointment. I learned how to ride that bike, eventually mastered it without the training wheels, and soon saw the value of the long banana seat – it’s much better if you want to get two people on at once. Plus, pink went out towards the end of the 80s, so Strawberry would never have survived for long.

Yet, my point in this is that, early in my life, I learned that when you ask for something you really want, chances are good that you’re not going to get it. You’re going to have to learn to make do with the next-best-thing. The next-best-thing is going to be fine, and eventually you’ll love it, and it will be practical and affordable, and you’ll learn lots of good lessons about appreciating what life gives you, and you’ll be a better, less-spoiled person for having not received the thing you really wanted, and instead accepted what life gives you.

This is a good lesson. But I am afraid that, in my relationship with the Lord, I have completely internalized this belief – that when I ask the Lord for something I really, truly want, and He instead asks me to obey Him, what that means is, prepare yourself for second-best. God isn’t going to give you the thing you want. No, He instead is going to change the desires of your heart (we’ve all heard this sermon, haven’t we?) until they match His desires.

And then you’re going to get a second-hand bike that you had better learn to content yourself with.

This is not the perspective that I want to have on God’s blessings. God’s blessing will not be second-best. Why don’t I feel that?

I’m wrestling with what should be my proper perspective on obedience, blessings, and receiving good things from the Lord. I want to believe that when I obey God, He will bless me – even though everything I’ve been taught says that I shouldn’t obey because I expect to receive anything, rather that I should just obey because God is God. And yet, the Psalms are full to the brim with these words: “How great is your goodness you have stored up for those who fear you,” Psalm 31:19.

I am going to get my pink bicyle.