Managed to catch YC in the week over a drink, and we spoke about lots of things in the CG, in our lives, what we observed, our Personal time with God. It’s really great to have a brother who’s a kindred spirit to share, encourage and spur each other in this pilgrimage. The conversation meandered into the area of obedience. And it brought to mind something that PCK (Pastor Chung Kai, haha, not the yellow boots one) shared with me few years back.
He shared a little hypothesis, which I feel to some extent is rather true.
I’m sure most of us are familiar with IQ - Inteligeance quotient (can see I don’t have much, can’t spell). And recently Emotional Quotient - EQ for short. PCK introduced something he termed the OQ, which is the obedience quotient.
Many of us can quite clearly recall our walk with the Lord when we first became Christians. As new believers in the faith, we sense the intense presence of God in our lives and the leading of the Holy Spirit is so clear and intimate. But as time goes on, we start to feel the distance in our walk with God. Sometimes God feels so far away. So why is that so? Some folks say its natural and it happens. Some say that in the beginning of our journey with Him, we lack faith, so He guides us closely through experience. Some say…
Well, this is PCK’s hypothesis… We all have OQ. You can see OQ like a glass flask, like that of a measuring cylinder (the ones we used in sec sch science labs). As New believers, our knowledge of God’s word (which is the top/brim of the flask) is at a certain level (say 20cm). And because our knowledge is low, its easy to obey, and so we score quite high in our OQ. So the OQ level in the flask is say 19cm. And so because our obedience quotient is rather high, we have not grieved God’s spirit, and thus feel the intimacy. (Here, I’m risking a debates over the christian experience, whether its impt or should we focus on it blah blah, but lets just leave it for another day)
Now… fast forward few years, we grow in knowledge of God’s word. But our obedience level hardly keeps up. So now, the flask looks like this. A super tall measuring cylinder of height 150cm. But sadly, the OQ level measures only at 55cm. And so, we have a lot of knowledge, but we are just not obeying what God has spoken in His word, and so we feel distant from God’s Spirit.
What I’m not saying here is that we should keep our OQ high by having low knowledge of God’s word. THAT’S missing the point. The point in this is let’s start to OBEY. Let’s DO what God is saying to us today in His Word.
Well, this is what scripture has to say about OQ…
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Luke 11:28
Lord, help me to start obeying. Amen.
