What True Obedience Actually Looks Like

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "What True Obedience Actually Looks Like"

Podcast: Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Hosts: Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Date: August 6, 2026

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Overview

This episode delves into the sometimes paradoxical relationship between obedience and freedom for those seeking to understand their identity and purpose as designed by God. Bill and Scott unpack the meaning of true obedience, distinguishing it from compliance, and share personal stories that illustrate how acting from a place of trust transforms not just individuals, but their spheres of influence. The central message: True obedience flows from trust and leads to deeper freedom.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Obedience vs. Freedom

Timestamps: 00:04–01:02

• Scott raises the seeming contradiction between obedience and freedom, referencing Galatians 5:13 and reflecting on the series’ theme of freedom:

  “For freedom, you are set free… But here’s how you use your freedom so that you become more free.” (Scott, 00:16)

• Bill affirms these ideas as complementary when properly understood, setting the tone for the conversation.

2. Defining Obedience and Compliance

Timestamps: 01:02–02:36

• Bill offers clear definitions:
  • Obedience: A “decision of my heart” responding to trust in the one influencing.
  • Compliance: “A decision of my will” responding to authority, often without heartfelt trust.
• Key distinction:

  “Complying is a decision of my will in response to your authority. Obedience is a decision of my heart in response to the trust I have in you.” (Bill, 01:58)

3. Experiencing Truth through Obedience

Timestamps: 02:36–04:05

• Bill emphasizes that knowing the truth is insufficient—transformation comes only through obedience:

  “Never teach as truth something you have not experienced as truth. And you cannot experience truth without obedience.” (Bill, 02:58)

• True obedience results in life change:

  “Every time I obey truth, my life will never be the same.” (Bill, 03:52) “Truth transforms, but it only transforms when it’s trusted.” (Bill, 03:59)

4. Personal Stories of Obedience

Timestamps: 04:05–11:44

• Bill’s Career Decision:
  • Bill shares a pivotal story: as Deputy Auditor General of Arizona, he faced a choice between his career and ministry.
  • After emotional struggle with his wife Grace, both choose to trust God and leave his secure job, not knowing the outcome.
  • Bill’s boss, Ira, unexpectedly supports him:

    “Would you let me get you a part-time job at one of the CPA firms?” (Bill recounting Ira, 07:25)

  • This obedience allowed Bill to authentically teach about trusting God.
• Scott’s Career Journey:
  • As a college student, Scott prays about whether to go into ministry but senses God’s call to the secular workforce.
  • He stays in Columbia, Missouri, unemployed for nine months, turning down other jobs to honor this call.
  • Endures financial uncertainty—with a baby on the way—yet persists in trusting God’s lead.
  • Scott reflects:

    “Trust me, with this career I’m calling you to… And stay at your church and look for work.” (Scott, 10:16)

5. The Impact and Practice of Obedience

Timestamps: 11:44–15:46

• Both hosts highlight that obedience elevates personal freedom and authentic influence, regardless of whether someone works in church ministry or business:

  “I get very tired… of ministries teaching people, ‘the greatest calling is ministry.’ No, stop it. Your example, I hope, encourages hundreds of hearts, thousands of hearts.” (Bill, 11:44)

  • Obedience is unique to each person’s calling; it is about doing what God has asked you to do.
• Scott summarizes:

  “If I’m talking to a person… You can trust what God tells you. And that’s different than ‘you should do this because the Bible says that.’” (Scott, 13:13)

  • Bill underscores the resulting freedom:

    “With God, there’s no obligation. This is a choice of the heart, because I trust a God who loves me.” (Bill, 13:59)

6. Recognizing God’s Voice and Navigating Doubt

Timestamps: 15:46–18:20

• Bill encourages listeners that God’s guidance is unique for every person in the Bible—and for each of us.
• He recommends a simple, honest prayer:

  “God, teach me to trust your voice.” (Bill, 16:28)

• Navigating doubt:
  • Scott: “All of those doubts came in all along… and yet I trusted it was him.” (Scott, 16:43)
  • Bill asserts a core principle:

    “For fear that it may not be God, have I missed God?... I’d have a greater fear of missing God than I would be afraid that it may not be God. Because God is that personal…” (Bill, 17:16)

  • Biblical figures—Abraham and Daniel—were “ordinary men” who learned to trust and obey God.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Heart of Obedience:
  “Obedience is a decision of my heart to act upon what I’ve let you do in me.” (Bill, 01:03)
• On the Limitation of Knowledge:
  “Knowledge does not require action… but truth requires action.” (Bill, 04:06)
• Individual Calling:
  “What is God asking you to do? What is God telling you his purposes in your life? Be obedient to that.” (Bill, 08:56)
• Removing Obligation:
  “I wish we could take the oughts out of the obligation people feel. With God, there’s no obligation.” (Bill, 13:50)
• Prayer for Listeners:
  “God, teach me to hear and understand your voice for my life.” (Bill, 18:13)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introducing Obedience and Freedom: 00:04–01:02
• Defining Obedience vs. Compliance: 01:02–02:36
• Experiencing Truth through Obedience: 02:36–04:05
• Bill’s Obedience Story: 04:05–08:02
• Scott’s Obedience Story: 09:10–11:44
• Obedience as Freedom & Influence: 11:44–15:46
• Hearing God’s Voice, Doubts, Encouragement: 15:46–18:20

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Final Thoughts

Bill and Scott present an inviting, grace-centered understanding of obedience as a relational response to God’s unique, personal guidance—not as a burdensome command. Their vulnerability, practical stories, and encouragement champion every listener’s ability to hear and act on God’s call, whatever their field or circumstance. The takeaway: Trusting and obeying God leads not to restriction, but to true freedom and life-changing influence.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

To talk about two words that I don't think go together. Obedience and freedom. Welcome to Living Influence. I'm your host, Scott Boyd, along with my friend and mentor, Bill Thrall. Scott, we've been doing the series on freedom. I'm going to quote a scripture, Galatians 5. I think it's 13. For freedom, you are set free. Brothers only. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. I love the verse because it absolutely declares, we do have freedom.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

But it also says, but here's how you use your freedom so that you become more free. We have this word obedience. Practicing obedience. Last week we talked about submission and permission, and now we're talking about obedience. It's like, wow, these do not, like, fit in my freedom bucket.

[A]

Thank you, Scott. And yet they are so necessary if we understand them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let me define obedience this way. Obedience is a decision of my heart to act upon what I've let you do in me. Obedience is a decision of my heart to. To act upon.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we have these biblical examples of these pillars of the faith who obeyed God because they trusted God back to our submission word. Who will I let influence me? Only the ones I trust. Who am I going to give permission to? Only the ones I trust. When I give God and Abraham. When I give God permission and I submit to him and I let God tell me what he wishes of my life, it's when I act upon that that I'm obeying. I want to make a huge distinction between two words, God. The complying and obeying are two different dynamics. Complying is a decision of my will in response to your authority. Obedience is a decision of my heart in response to the trust I have in you.

[B]

Yeah. And the love I'm receiving.

[A]

And the love I'm receiving because of it. Something happens when I'm willing to let God influence me. He will, and I act upon that. That's called obedience. You've heard me say this many times. I've had the privilege of speaking literally all over the world. But I'll get in leadership situations where I'll be giving talks and I'll say to a lot of leaders, here's something I want to challenge you with. I'll say this to everybody in our audience. Never teach as truth something you have not experienced as truth. And you cannot experience truth without obedience. You cannot. You can experience knowledge we can have. And there are millions of people who have a lot of knowledge of the Bible, but it's making no difference in their lives because they're choosing to not trust it. And so I say to a lot, how would I know if I'm trusting truth? I'll obey it. Well, what happens when I actually obey truth? This always happens. Every time I obey truth. My life will never be the same

[B]

every time because the experience is so profound.

[A]

The experience is so profound.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Truth transforms, but it only transforms when it's trusted.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And how would I know I'm trusting it? I'm acting upon it. I want to say to anyone who's listening, could I be a person that says to you, would you look into your knowledge of the Bible and allow yourself to ask this question, how much of what I know do I trust? And I could ask you to ask another question, how much that I say I trust? Have I acted upon truth is transformational when it is acted upon. Knowledge does not require action. It just acquires a willingness to agree. Yeah, but truth requires action. So in my life, Scott, as an example, I have been given significant opportunities by God to trust him with truth. That has been transformational for me. One of my really significant stories is the story of my having to make a decision with my dear wife about our career or our ministry. It's a very important story. And I was the deputy Auditor General for the state of Arizona, and Ira Osmond, a good, dear friend of mine, was the auditor general. And one afternoon he said to me, bill, this weekend we're going to have to get all these audits finished. And I said, iraq can. I've got a retreat this weekend. He got very upset. I think he should have. He got very upset. And he said, bill, you're going to have to make a decision. It's either your career or these kids. He always called us those kids. And I heard him, and it troubled me deeply because I think he was right. And I went home and Grace greeted me. She could tell I was concerned because I was. And we sat at our kitchen table and we are such mighty people of faith. We both started crying. We both said, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We don't have a plan. We have no support to what are we going to do? Ira is asking us to make a decision. And I would say earlier on in my life, when I was 19, I had this profound sense of destiny that God was going to do something in my life that really mattered. And in that moment, with Grace at the table, I deeply remember that moment. And I said, honey, I think this is the time that God wants us to trust him. And obey his sense of destiny for our lives. And so we agreed that I would go back to work on Monday until Ira that we were leaving. And as you know my story, he's very old school. And when you told Ira you were leaving, you left. I mean, it was like there was no next moment. You were gone. So I went in early on Monday morning and he saw me and he did a great thing. He did several great things, but he did a great thing. He said, don't tell me what your decision is. Because he knew that if I told him I was leaving, I was gone. He said, don't tell me what your decision. And I knew at that point he knew what I was going to decide. And he said, but, Bill, if you're deciding to leave, Listen to this, Scott, if you're deciding to leave, would you let me get you a part time job at one of the CPA firms? What? Yeah, he did. He got me a job with a company called Ernst and Ernst. I share all this because practicing obedience gives us the freedom to teach truth. It gives us the freedom to teach truth. I cannot transfer truth to you, Scott, that I have not experienced. I can transfer knowledge. And there may be truth in the knowledge I teach.

[B]

So what's the truth that that obedience gave you permission to teach?

[A]

It gave me permission now for over 50 years to teach. We can trust God and act upon now. Grace and I, in that moment, had no idea of our next.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We just loved all these young adults we were doing life with, but we didn't know, is it going to last two weeks? But we did know for us that it was time for us to really be committed because we believe that was what God wanted us to do. So I've sat with lots and lots of people, and I never say to somebody, well, if you're really going to trust God, you're going to go into ministry. I never say that. I've never said it to anybody because I don't believe it. What I say to people is, what is God asking you to do? What is God telling you his purposes in your life? Be obedient to that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you have a story.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I want you to tell your story of your obedience to what God's asked you to do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you acted upon it.

[B]

Yeah. My. My story was, I was in college and we'd found a church that we were excited about going to. Worship was amazing at this church. And, and it was full of college kids, full of kids our age, people starting families, just getting married. And we felt like God. God called us to stay there. Amen. And in the midst of that, we had lots of friends that felt called to go into the ministry and go to Bible college. And I was praying the same prayer, lord, what do you want me to do? Good. And I felt like God's like, well, no, I want you to have a secular job. By the way, there isn't such a thing. They're all spiritual. Amen. But I want you to go in the workforce, into the work world. And I had this sense that I want you to really go for it, and trust me.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

And so now, wait, wait.

[A]

Those are the words. Those are the words.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because what you did is you acted upon that trust.

[B]

Yeah. And so it was. It was.

[A]

That's called obedience, God.

[B]

Yeah. And so it was. Trust me, with. With this career, I'm calling you to Amen. And stay at your church and. And look for work. The crazy thing was there were no chemical engineering jobs in Columbia, Missouri. So I was promptly unemployed for nine months.

[A]

Great story.

[B]

And. And I just kept looking for something that I could do that would let me honor that commitment to. To stay at that church. And so nine months unemployed, you know,

[A]

it's a long time.

[B]

I had tears like, God, can't you give me a job? I thought you wanted me to stay. And I turned down two jobs that were not in Columbia, Missouri. My wife got pregnant, and we didn't have insurance, and that was the cheapest baby we had, by the way. So, so strange.

[A]

And David's a good, solid, strong young man.

[B]

Yeah. Came out healthy. But I do go to that point, that story in my life of trusting God with my career to. That's connected to this business that I have that God gave me. I mean, I worked hard for it in the midst of all of it, of course, but I think God was involved in all of that.

[A]

I do, too, Scott. And our stories have the same principles it just gave us. I've been in the ministry a long time. I get very tired, very, very tired of preachers and ministries teaching people. The greatest calling is ministry, is. No, stop it. Stop it, please. Your example, I hope, encourages hundreds of hearts, thousands of hearts. Scott, you were obedient to trusting God with what he told me, with what he told you to do. I believe I was obedient. What I believe God wanted grace in me to do. And I would say this, and God has, beyond our imaginations, blessed us. I could not have imagined the 50 years of ministry that I've had. You could not have imagined the Growth of your business. It's growing. I teasingly say to you, it's grown way beyond you.

[B]

It is.

[A]

And it continues to grow under your sons.

[B]

It does.

[A]

But. But we're talking here now, and this is what's happening, Scott. This is the. This is the principle we're teaching. When I practice obedience, it gives me permission to speak truth into other people's lives.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And one of the things I like about this is part of the truth we're speaking is if I'm talking to person, a person, a. You can trust what God tells you. And that's different than you should do this because the Bible says that.

[A]

Say that whole thing again. That's powerful.

[B]

I mean. Yeah. Disobedience is to a person you're ministering to. You can trust what God's told you.

[A]

Amen.

[B]

The only person that knows that is them.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

I don't know what God's called us.

[A]

God, you know how much freedom. You just. You just gave a whole bunch of freedom to people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I wish they could receive it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I wish. I wish we could take the oughts out of the obligation people feel. With God, there's no obligation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is an obligation. Well, you gotta do it. No, this is a choice of the heart. Because I trust a God who loves me and so do you. And now we get to sit here together from two totally different backgrounds, sharing the same principles of grace for people. So over the years, in both of our lives, and I'll just speak from mine, I have this privilege of saying to people, I think God has taught me some things that I have experienced as life changing back to last week. I'd like to have permission to share them with you. Yeah, I do. Cohorts, we. You and I have done them together. And in our cohorts, we get to this point where I talk about the things we're talking about now. And. And I've had lots of Christian leaders in our cohorts and some pastors. And I remember a pastor stood up right in the middle of the group. Excuse me a minute. Stop, everybody. And he had tears in his eyes, and what is going on? He said, I need to just confess openly right now that I think God's asked me to do something and I've chosen to not act upon it. And he takes his wife's hand. And in front of everybody, in front of everybody, he says, God, I. I really want to honor that. I don't know how. And he and I met over that. But listen to the principle he learned in that cohort, in that moment, he heard what you just said.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

God speaks to every believer. Could I join Scott in encouraging each of you? How do you hear God? There is no pattern. There is no example in the Bible where God always did everything the same way with everybody he met and used. Every story is different. So is mine. So is yours. So is theirs. But would I be willing to, just as a Christian say to this audience, could I encourage you just to pray a short prayer? It's a very short prayer. God, teach me to trust your voice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Teach me to trust your voice.

[B]

But how can I hear it? You just can.

[A]

I'll tell you what. How can I hear it? Listen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And believe it's God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And believe it's God.

[B]

Yeah. Because here's the deal with my story. Maybe everybody just wanted to stay at that church. And maybe I made that up. And maybe God didn't ask me to trust him with my career. And that was just me. But. And all of those doubts came in all along, the 30, 40 years that followed. And yet I trusted it was him.

[A]

We're giving a really important affirmation here right now for people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that is. I know some people go, don't tell people because they'll start acting. It may not be God. Okay, I agree. It may not be God. Okay, we got that. Scott's already said that. Here's the thing is for fear that it may not be God. Have I missed God? Yeah, that's the fear. I'd have a greater fear of missing God than I would be afraid that it may not be God. Because God is that personal. Scott, with each of us, I will never forget my sense of destiny experience. At 19. I knew it was God. When I sat at that table with grace, she and I both knew it was God. Abraham knew it was God.

[B]

Yeah, he did.

[A]

He knew it was God. Daniel knew it was God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now you see, but they're the super saints. They were just ordinary men. They were just like you and me. And God spoke to them. So my prayer for everyone encourages this. God, teach me to hear and understand your voice for my life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That'd be powerful.

[B]

So there you go, guys. Obedience and freedom.

[A]

Amen. They go together.

[B]

Scott, it's amazing. We appreciate you watching Living Influence. Don't forget, if you're in business, if you're a leader, we've got a conference for you. It's in Denver in September. Go to living influenceleadership.com to find out about that, and we'd love to see you next week. Thanks again for listening to Living Influence. We appreciate you. We'd love it if you'd go to livinginfluence.com, contact us and send us an email. We'd love to know what you're thinking. See you next week.