Learning Obedience

¹“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;” (Hebrews 5:8). Jesus Christ was able to sacrifice Himself to save all of God's children because He was without sin. To put it another way, Jesus was obedient to every commandment and spiritual prompting He received throughout His life. For someone who had never been disobedient even once, we might assume that by the time He reached the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had learned everything there was to know about obedience. But it was only by the things which He suffered that Jesus fully learned obedience. He had been obedient when it was easy and He had been obedient when it was hard. Now He had to find out for Himself if He would be obedient when the pain was so great that He bled from every pore. If Jesus was still learning important lessons about obedience even as He suffered the pains of every living creature, then shouldn't we relax our expectations about our own ability to learn obedience? Jesus Christ asked three separate times for the advanced lessons in obedience to be cut short so that He might not have to drink the bitter cup. It was okay for Jesus to suffer and still obey. It was okay for Him to ask for the suffering to stop and yet still obey. It is okay for us to want to obey but still ask for the lessons on obedience to be over. It is okay for us to suffer and still obey. It is okay for us to still have more lessons of obedience, even if we have proven ourselves a thousand times in the past. Jesus was learning about obedience right until the very end. I hope we will all allow ourselves the time and space to master obedience and accept the fact that we may not fully master it in this lifetime. If we are still trying to figure out how to be obedient always, we are in good company.