Obey or Not to Obey?

I actually wasn't going to do this today but then I read something this morning that prompted me to reconsider. But it actually all started yesterday morning. I received, as sometimes I do, an email from Lee with the TGIF (Today God is First) devotional that he reads. But this one was prompted with a message from Lee that sprang my curiosity immediately to stop what I was doing and read the devotional below. I'm not going to detail the whole devotional but it was named "3 Phases of Obedience" and the author detailed 3 phases toward altimate obedience the way that God desires us to obey. Doesn't sound that out of the ordinary..right? In paraphrase this is what was said:
1st phase: "When we first begin our Christian walk and spiritual journey, we base our obedience on the 'outcome' of the obedience." (i.e. if we preceive a positive outcome to the request of obedience then we obey based on the positive outcome; whereas if we preceive a negative outcome obedience is not as quickly acted upon.)
2nd phase: "However, God desires us to live an obedience based life. In order to transition us from an outcome-based life to an obedience-based life, he will bring a crisis into our lives. This crisis is designed to create pain which motivates us to seek him to alleviate the pain."
3rd phase: "Ultimately, God desires us to live a life of obedience and deeply rooted in conviction....During the crisis phase (phase 2) we discover the personal love of God in our lives which we have never experienced before."

This really, really made me mad! And Lee asked me if I believed what this author was stating and my response was this: "hummm...NO!!! NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT!! i don't believe that God had anything to do without crisis, i believe that He is looking for a response to our crisis but i don't believe the He created a scenario like this- that would make Him unloving in my opinion, uncaring, unconcerned, and i say this thru issues of my faith but i don't believe this and i can't believe this because if i allow myself to think this way then why would i elect to believe in God? he would just be wrong all the time."
I don't believe that God, sits on His thrown and says "You know that religious looking family really isn't obeying Me the way I want them to; I think they need a problem to make them look to Me." And then causes some crisis in our lives. If this is the God that I have come to love, the God that altho I'm struggling right now I believe waits for my response, the God who says throughout His Word "love", "love", "love", and I am wrong in what I believe then who am I to witness to others about this author's understanding of obedience to God? I gotta say there is no way, not one moment in my life (pre or post being a Believer & Follower of Christ) that would make me be a witness if I believed that God "brings a crisis" in my life to draw me closer to Him! That doesn't sound like an all knowing God, who knows my heart, steps and future. It sounds like a god who determines 'who' he wants to turn to him and then puts that person in a crisis situation to give them no 'free will'. It sounds like a god I'd really not want to believe in at all because then he would be responsible for the current crisis I and my family are in, and he is responsible for every crisis in our lives. Hummm....what to do you think? I don't think so!

The reason I wrote this was because I read something this morning that portrays, to me, a merciful, loving God who knows crisis's and problems are created by Our choices and He offers and escape route, from the crisis that is created.
"Fear no, thou worm Jacob..I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth (Isa. 41:14,15) Could any two things be a greater contrast that a worm and an insturment with teeth? The worm is delicate...crushed beneath the passing wheel...an instrument with teeth can break and not be broken..... And so the "worm" may take heart. The mighty God can make us stronger than our circumstances. He can bend them all to our good. In God's strength we can make them all pay tribute to our souls. We can even take hold of a black disappointment, break it open, and extract some jewel of grace... Christ is building His kingdom with earth's broken things...Heaven is filling with earth's broken lives, and there is no bruised reed that Christ cannot take and restore to glorious blessedness and beauty. He can take a life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it into a harp whose music shall be all praise. He can life earth's saddest failure up to heaven's glory."

It amazes me sometimes that man, us, we, can take the word 'obey' or 'obedience' and make it into a demand, a thing that is going to happen whether we want it to or not and make a walk that is to be of love a walk of fear. That's what it is in the first author's description a walk of fear. Isn't he really saying "Beware! There's a crisis in your life coming if you don't obey properly!"?

I chose to believe in God, I chose to believe in Christ's salvation, and I chose those because of His mercy, not because I blamed all of the crisis's in my life on Him and He drove me to Him. He showed me love without condemnation; He gives me mercy and peace without requirements; He offers me an opportunity for grace and mercy through Him. That is God, giver of life and lover of me, caregiver and holder of my pain and sorrow, the One who knows my heart and my future and my numbered days by Him and He knows all in and of me.