The Love In My Life

Yesterday, my wife and I performed a wedding ceremony together.  It was our first time ever doing one together.  It was my first one in over 10 years.  In the ceremony, the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a is used, which is very common.  Today, the entry from Chambers uses this same passage.  He could have focused on many different facets of this passage, but he focused on a characteristic of this love, not found here, but rather alluded to in Galatians 5:22.

Spontaneity as a quality of love is what my wife has always wanted me to have with her (all you husbands out there know what I mean).  But in the sense Chambers uses the term, he means it’s not something achieved by determined effort, but rather noticeable as I look back.  Then I see that I was loving, kind, not boastful, not proud, enduring all sorts of things, and so on.  By looking back over the path down which I’ve been led, I see where I have become more like my Master.  I wish I would see more of those places, but I see more now than I have for many years.

Love, as Paul describes it in the letter to the Corinthians, is the greatest gift of the Spirit of my Master.  Paul is quick to point out how much superior it is to tongues, prophecy, and knowledge specifically.  He points out how love is not arrogant or self-inflated, which was the result of the afore mentioned gifts in the Corinthian Church.  Paul is trying very diligently to help the church in Corinth see the answer to their problems is a deeper devotion and submission to Jesus, and less of a self-focus.  In that city, everyone seeks to climb higher, faster, with more money and affluence, and they all want the attention of everyone else (sort of like Hollywood today). 

This answer to problems, my problems is true for me today.  When I submit my moments to Jesus, I will be surprised when I look back, to see where His qualities have shown through my own.  When I focus on my Master instead of myself, I will experience something that I will be unable to notice in the present, but only as I look back over into the past to this time, just as Chambers said.  I have experienced that.  I do today.  Today, though I also see where my cynical response to traffic in the car with my daughter yesterday was reflected back to me this morning.  It is a poignant reminder of the frailty of my character, and the importance of further devotion to my Master.  It’s not just my life being affected, but that of my daughter.  I am teaching her improper responses to whatever does not go her way in her timing.  I need to show her differently.

So, faith, hope, and love remain, these three, but the greatest of these is love.  As I have said in a couple of sermons, faith will get me into heaven, but love enables me to bring friends.  Hope forms the foundation of faith, faith creates the safe space to love, and love is the evidence of my Master’s work in me.  I guess I have some devoting and focusing to do.  I hope I will look back over today, and see the marks of my Master’s love.  I believe He will make it so.

http://www.myutmost.org/04/0430.html

Childish Peace–A Worthy Goal?

Today Chambers strikes very near the heart of something within me.  It might be a desire, it might be something about which I feel convicted.  Whatever it is, I know that I want it very much, and I know I am not there yet.

In 1 John 3:2, John points out to the church in Ephesus that we do not yet know what we shall be, only that we are now children of God.  We also know that we will be will be like Jesus when we finally see our Master as He truly is.  That we are now children of God, that I am now a child of God has interesting range of meaning.

Where Chambers goes with this is somewhere I would not have ventured, at least not from this passage.  I’m really glad he did though.  There is an element to the life lived with a centrality of spirit that is very different from what is normally lived.  I live among the wise, those with common sense, who poke fun at the foolish, those who lack sense.  I walk with them and laugh with them, count myself among them, and am probably twice the fool for doing so. 

How wise is a person who cannot create a planet?  What wisdom does someone possess to cannot fathom the construction of the most minute form of life?  Seriously, on the spectrum of wisdom, from complete fool to complete understanding, where would I fall on such a scale?  Perhaps a bit beyond aborigines, and several steps behind molecular biologists.  Either way, I, like the rest of my fellow beings, spend my entire life at the foolish end of the spectrum.  I am socially inept in many situations.  My knowledge is limited in vast tracts of fields.  I do a lot of guessing about people rather than knowing them.  Do I even come close to qualifying as  wise?  Not just no, but absolutely not!  So why pretend?

Chambers points out the obvious but scary alternative.  I like my world to be orderly and predictable.  I serve a Master who is orderly on a level I cannot perceive yet, and He will never be predictable.  I like routines to manage my life.  But my Master is not concerned with my patterns, and draws me into His paths instead.  I want things to move around me with smooth precision and flow (such as traffic!), and I have trouble accepting that it does not, nor will it ever!  This fool needs to embrace his foolishness, and sit patiently waiting for his Master, and then run full tilt when called.  That’s right, the life lived with a focus on the spiritual things blows with the wind, or seems to.  The wind is my Master, His Spirit living within me.  I am to be the leaf or feather.  I’m scared by that.

And yet, I have felt the most peace I have felt in years when I accepted that we were to move out of state, leaving all the comforts behind.  I know that I will feel more ill-at-ease as the time approaches, but still, I know peace right now.  That is a lesson for me.  The unpredictable, the abnormal, unexplainable is my comfort zone.  Sure, my in-laws have asked for help, but seriously, why does that make it imperative that we pack up and move out there?  Because my Master says so.  It’s not an imperative from them, it is a plea, but not an imperative.  The imperative comes from my Master.  Sure I could fight it, but no peace comes from fighting Him.  I could try to reason my way out of it, but see the previous sentence; same problem, bad idea.  There are a lot of “I could”s that would be “wise” and acceptable to the wise people I live among.  This though challenges them to consider my Master.

I desperately want the freedom that comes from wanting only my Master.  I want to be found constantly waiting for the sound of His voice.  I want to be so annoyingly connected to Him that it frustrates people that I have His unpredictability, His apparent foolishness, and His love for people.  Today, I want to be child-like in my walk with my Master, all day.  I think hear the bell for recess, I gotta go!

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 29th.

Being Content with My Life as Plunder

The entry for today uses the last part of the verse from yesterday (we skipped the middle for some reason, perhaps tomorrow).  The King James version uses the phrase, “I will give thee thy life for a prey” and the Hebrew uses a word normally used for “plunder” or “booty”; think “spoils of war” and so on.  One interesting qualifier is the phrase, “in every place you walk there”, which to me means that Baruch could walk anywhere he chose, and Yahweh would still provide him his soul for his labor on the side of Yahweh.

Have you ever seen movies, read books, or heard stories where the captor releases a captive and when the captive asks to take something with them, the captor says, “you leave alive, that is enough” or something to that effect.  It never sounds like much of a gift, but on the other hand the captive might be seen as fortunate.  The captor still retains the tough bad-boy exterior while making a concession which is “good” in some sense.  That is not my Master in this case.  The middle portion of the verse reads, “For behold I bring in evil on all flesh.”  That term, “all flesh” would ordinarily include Baruch.  So, the gift of his life, and giving that gift in any place he goes really is a nice gift.  It is far more than the rest of the nation receives.  Jerusalem is about to be wiped out like a dish, and that is not something a priest or Levite wants to be a part of.

There is a danger I fall into indicated in the thought flitting through my mind that my Master has somehow “shorted” me.  I look around me at what others might have, or what others might be doing (even for my Master), and envy sneaks up and through my mind.  I am not content with what my Master has given to me.  Sometimes I quickly ascribe my lack to my habitual sinfulness, but not always.  Envy does sometime remain.  That is the sort of thing to which Chambers is referring in his discussion of abandonment to my Master.  If I envy what He has done for others, then I am not abandoned to my Master.  If I am abandoned to my Master, then I everything I have from Him is gravy on top of what I already have been given, my life in every place I walk.

If you have the entries from January and February, you may have run across or remember my struggles with fears.  If my Master has promised me my life in every place I walk, then I have nothing to fear.  I am about to “walk” out of this state and move, lock, stock, and barrel, several states over.  The truck is reserved.  We have two months.  Still no job, no house per se, so really we walk the rope blindfolded.  But my Master is the net below, and we follow His voice.  Guided by this “spiritual sonar” we trust in the promise from my Master that He gives us our life in every place we walk.  The hard part is that we want more than just our “life”, we want a “comfortable life”, a life of relative ease, to retire before retirement, to have all we want without accumulating wealth.  It doesn’t work that way, and we know it.  The promise from my Master is our life, not our ease or comfort.

So, today, I will seek the Kingdom of my Master and His righteousness.  I will allow my Master to provide as He sees fit.  I will be content with my life since all around me people are headed for destruction.  I will be thankful, and count the blessings along the way to work (like that I have a car to drive there – public transportation take over 2 hours to take me 8 miles and puts me there 20 minutes late, is that crazy or what?).  I will love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul today.  For He has given them to me for plunder.  Arg! Avast there matey and man the cannon!

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 28th.

Am I Seeking Great Things for Myself?

Today, Chambers returns to a topic he has covered before.  But this passage gives it interesting meaning, more substantial than others he has used.  The ministry model in Scripture with which I have most often identified is the Prophet Jeremiah.  My identification with him is usually due to self-pity, but it was comforting to know that a preacher had to deal with a less compliant flock than I was leading.  And the end of Jeremiah is a sad one, just as mine was traumatic and depressing.  But really, my experiences were of my own making, whereas Jeremiah was truly a victim of his devotion to our Master.  I still like to read his story.

In this part, Jeremiah 45:5, or actually Jeremiah 45, Yahweh has given Jeremiah a word for his scribe, Baruch.  Baruch is writing of the demise of his people and is concerned for himself, so Yahweh assures him that he will be given his life in any place he travels, but he is also asked a good question.  “Do you seek great things for yourself?”  It could also be written as a statement, “you seek greatness for yourself” since there is no interrogative particle used in the Hebrew.  But either way, the correction is, “Don’t!”  Yahweh is about to bring evil on all flesh and that is not a situation in which to seek greatness.  But it is a situation where being given ones life is a nice parting gift.

The statement or question is where Chambers focuses.  He states that to seek great things from God instead of seeking God misses the point and really seeks for ourselves.  In that situation, I become focused on the gift my Master gives instead of my Master.  I can see this as a danger.  I have learned a lot from Job and from Jeremiah.  I have gained insight into the character of my Master enough to know that He does in fact bring evil on the flesh He has created.  It sounds contradictory, but again, this is due to my limited understanding of evil, and not a contradictory character quality of my Master (think of “evil” in this sense as the English word “bad” and it makes better sense).

So, am I a mercenary?  Or, since my Master is not necessarily about to bring “badness” on all flesh, is this an ok time to seek great things for myself?  Is it ever an ok time to seek great things for myself?  I doubt it.  The search for great things for myself is never applauded in Scripture.  It is not esteemed in Proverbs or Psalms.  It is not in line with the teachings of my Master in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.  I do not find such a goal in the letters of Paul or Peter or John.  Such seeking does not characterize the apostles in the book of Acts.  No, such a quest has no support in Scripture, at least not a positive one.

The truth is that my Master has already given more than I have any right to expect.  I have not earned what I already have, so what possible justification do I have to seek more?  What temporal luxury is in anyway comparable to the luxury to be lavished upon me in the Kingdom of my Master.  I have eternity, what else matters?  The reality that my Master has given Himself and suffered unimaginably on my behalf should so weigh me down and impress me that I would not even think to ask for anything else.  To ask for more would be to lessen what He has already given.  As if what He has done is nice, but what have You done for me lately?  Where do I get off asking such a question of the Creator of this universe?  How can I even entertain such a thought toward my Savior, my Master, the One condescending to live within me, the One loving me more than I can imagine?  How can such thoughts even be possible if I really believe these things about my Master? 

This is why gratitude should be my first position of each day, of every moment, forming the cornerstone of every response to every situation.  The pain and misery of this world is still not equal to the suffering of my Master on my behalf, and on behalf of every other rebel in this world.  Japan is slowly recovering from the shocking earthquake, and they are not out of the woods yet.  Many still suffer, and much of the world has moved on (a particularly unique quality of Americans).  But the Spirit of my Master still hovers over the waters of the Pacific, the Islands of Japan, and people suffering on them.  He seeks to draw them to Himself and be their comfort.  He has people there right now working as His hands and His feet to meet needs, heal wounds, and share a word about Him.  Again, what right do I have to focus on something other than my Master when what I have been given already more than satisfies my need?

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, he quotes Jesus, my Master as saying, “So, do not worry about what you shall wear, what you shall eat, and where you shall live, for the pagans run after these things and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.”  He concludes with a charge to seek first the Kingdom of Jesus and His righteousness, and promises that all these things will be added to you as well.  I must wrap my mind around the truth that living in a cardboard box while seeking the Kingdom of my Master here on earth is preferable to living in a mansion here on earth and a cardboard box in my Master’s Kingdom in Heaven.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 27th.

The Character of My Disturbing Master

I can’t remember if I’ve said it before, but God, my Master is really weird.  I mean that in the strangest sense of the word.  People have used weird to refer to ugly and disgusting things, but they are not unimaginable, not really weird.  But my Master does not just twist the obtainable things into new stuff, but actually takes stuff unimagined and makes stuff unimaginable beyond the initial unimaginable stuff with which He started.  He is really weird.

I stress this because I worked very hard against a trend of my upbringing.  It is one that I saw everywhere, I caught it rather than was directly taught it.  If you ask most believers if they have this trend I suspect they would deny it in words, but evidence might show in their actions.  For a very long time I interpreted Scripture from the perspective of already knowing my Master.  The alternative is to interpret Scripture in order to know my Master, and is preferable in the extreme.

What I mean by interpreting Scripture from the perspective of already knowing my Master is that I assumed God was such-and-such a way and had such-and-such a character or character qualities.  And I am not referring to the “Omni’s” of His character, but personality.  And this character was not only derived from my early understanding of authority, but was influenced by that.  My perspective or understanding of the character of my Master was more influenced by the stories I was told and read as a child.  God is good, God is great, God is powerful, and loving.  But none of the stories I read really defined what “good”, “great”, “powerful”, and “loving” really meant.  I had to look at society and culture to find those definitions.  And, just so you know, society and culture have the wrong definitions for those terms, regardless of the culture and society.  Some may get closer than others, but none get it completely right.

So I had “built” God, my Master, in an image I received from my culture and family.  Then, while in the US Army, I began to actually read the Bible.  The stories were no longer from children’s books and Bible story books.  They were from the Scriptures.  There were stories which never made it into those books, stories which were vastly different from those books, and there was this Character in all of them Who was very different from the character in those books.  I assure you that my Master is really weird.  If you want a case in point, take the passage from today’s entry in MUFHH, Genesis 22:2.  The promised son for whom Abraham had waited literally over a decade was to be the demanded sacrifice, whole burnt offering demanded by Abraham’s Master.  That is a weird Master.  Think of just the “mixed message” in all of this.  “I love you and will provide you a son in your old age from you and the wife you love.  But then kill him once you have had a chance to bond with him.”  This is one of those things which those who do not know my Master make them not want to get know my Master.  What cruelty!  For another instance, why put two trees in a garden, and then punish all of humanity when they eat from the wrong one?  That is so cruel!  What did God expect to happen?  Of course they would eat from the wrong one eventually!

So, this has a tremendous effect on my understanding of holiness.  Being odd for God as He is odd means being weird in scary ways.  Jesus says He came to save the whole world, yet the Father commands the Hebrews entering the promised land to completely destroy the first city devoting everyone and everything in it to Him.  How exactly is that “loving the whole world?”  Things like this are what give people the impression that the “God of the Old Testament” is different from the “God of the New Testament.”  People accuse my Master of having a dual personality or being bi-polar, or a variety of other mental disorders.  And they have a case, or would, if my Master were human, and not the One capable of creating this universe.  But He is the One capable of creating this universe.  He claims to be loving, even in the Hebrew Scriptures.  So it must be that I am the one not really understanding love.  He claims to be powerful, so it must be me who does not understand power.  He claims to be good, so it might just be me who does not really understand “good”.  He claims to be great, so perhaps I don’t have a “great” understanding of that word.

Part of my submission to my Master is accepting His definition for things.  And that is scary because His definitions run contrary to the society and culture in which I live.  I will be looked at like a freak, like I’m weird, like I’m odd.  So, holiness is not as easy as it might first seem.  It is not the exalted position servants of my Master might assume at first.  And part of the problem is not having some slick unassailable argument for the definitions which run so contrary to our society and culture.  My only fall back for a definition is what I read and how I understand the character of my Master from the Scriptures.  I can point to those examples, but they are not easy to understand (see the reasons in the previous paragraphs). 

The truth I have had to receive in exchange for my early assumptions is that my Master is weird in scary ways, does scary seemingly mean things, and is not safe in the way a kitten is safe, but actually dangerous in the way an enormous tiger is dangerous (lions are always used, but tigers are even more frightening, and larger than lions).  So, I wait, worship, and walk before One scary weird Master.  This Master loves me, which I don’t understand and can’t really explain only show.  This Master has my back, which is even more meaningful when the One protecting me is so frighteningly powerful.  And this Master is the One I serve, which brings me into very close contact with Him.  How can I not tremble at that?  Even the protectors of His throne are shockingly frightening.  He is truly terrible, and I enter into another day of service to Him.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 26th.

Am I a Minuteman?

This generation or decade has been called various things like the “microwave” generation, “fast food” generation, and other names that refuse to come to mind at 5 am.  The names refer to the insistence on having whatever is wanted immediately.  There is an expectation that whatever is desired can be delivered instantly.  And that word, “instant” is one I have never seen used the way Chambers used it, or rather as the King James Version uses it.  I love that!  I never knew it could be used that way.

But this demand for fast service is not reserved for the generation of the last decade.  I have customers who are shocked when I cannot deliver access to our online platform immediately, when they have to wait overnight.  They are shocked.  They ask, “Aren’t you an information company?” or “Aren’t you a computer software company?” and I answer my usual “Sort of”, which is true.  But the real question underlying theirs is, “How, in this age of electronic processes, can an enormous business entity not have the technology to deliver whatever they sell instantly via the internet.”  It’s just that no one has the time to ask the full question.  They are too busy demanding whatever they want however they want it, delivered when they want it.  Since they invariably wait until the last moment to request (or demand), the crisis they have brought on themselves becomes our problem.

Enough whining about customers.  I do the same thing, so I have little room for complaint.  I am a part of this generation chirping for whatever I want to be delivered immediately.  But this is not really the focus of Chambers this morning.  His focus is on those servants who are not willing to work/serve until they are on; the Master has given them some special insight, illumination, a word, a message, a swift kick to the bottom.  I had that worked out of me while “interning” as a minister for the pastor of the church where I grew up.  He is a “different” kind of guy, still at that church, which is strange enough.  His differences were of a range of things both good and bad, but I had a problem regarding him.  I was prejudiced against him for some of his more “antique” views.  He wasn’t old enough to really subscribe to such views, but he had this bull-dog tenacity in holding on to them.  A lot of them were out of sync with the rest of the church and a lot of mainline thought in the churches around us, but he held them anyway.  I thought him foolish because of that.  It’s hard to work for someone you don’t respect.  It is also hard to respect someone who you don’t really understand.  And it makes it even harder to respect someone who has been “blasphemed” and I have believed the “blasphemy”.  Anyway, my disrespect was, and has been, unwarranted, and was beneath the calling my Master had placed on my life.  In fact, due to that calling, I should have been his most ardent supporter, but I was young, and stupid.

Now that I am old and stupid, I have at least had the benefit of being crushed in ministry by other people at least as equally stupid as myself.  Now, I am more his supporter, in fact the more I get to know him on Facebook the more I am surprised by who he seems to be.  I still don’t subscribe to many of his views, but I have learned that those views he holds, he holds without beating people about the head, neck, and shoulders with them; a lesson I learned slowly.  He may be out of touch with much of society, but I think I now see that to his credit.  Where his wisdom intersects with Chambers in this entry is in that he holds his beliefs when it’s popular and when it’s not.  He doesn’t change with the wind, or bow to the popular trend or follow the latest ministry fad.  He has a segment of our Baptist denomination he listens to, and ignores or confounds the rest.  I was never able to stand that strong, even when I thought I was right.  He is one tough minister, whatever else might be said about him.  He has stuck in with that church when he was popular and when he wasn’t, and I and others did not make it easy for him to stay.  He is an excellent example of being “instant” when it is convenient for others and not for himself.  He is available with a word from his Master at any time, even if he doesn’t have the time. 

So, this entry is sort of a confession of a failing of mine regarding a fellow minister.  But it also explores an area where I need growth.  I need to be “instant” whenever I am needed, not whenever I feel “inspired”.  The seasons change, but my convictions should not, my readiness should not.  My powder should be dry, my musket clean, and my shot handy.  I am not always there.  Paul’s charge to Timothy in his second letter (4:2) is still a good one for me, even now that I’m no longer in vocational ministry.  Peter says to always be ready to give a reason for my hope.  Well, I have a musket to clean and shot to gather. 

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 25th.

Happy Resurrection Day!

Happy Resurrection Day!  He is Risen!  And nothing else really matters.  I have been pressured in the past to make other things of greater importance, but nothing compares.  It seems ministry is gauged on numbers to determine success, and numbers can become a dipstick of whether my Master is blessing a ministry or not, whether the ministry is working or not, whether the ministry is in the will of my Master or not, and all sorts of other things.  There is a problem with that view.

Narrow is the road and few find it that leads to life.  Can popularity really function as a reliable guide when the good news being preached has the aroma of death to so many?  Paul saw many respond to the good news, and then proceeded to write letters to those churches about their problems.  I distrust numbers as a reliable measure of success for ministry.  In fact, I have a different focus for ministry.  As Chambers says in today’s entry, the job of the church is discipleship, not converts and baptisms.  Conversions and baptisms naturally follow from discipleship of believers.  But discipleship has been lost to a large degree in “larger” churches.

Not all large churches have lost this view, and ironically, it has been the central focus of two of the largest, Willowcreek and Saddleback.  Then these churches formed a new “model” for growing churches.  The churches grown from these models were judged and measured by their numbers, and the focus was lost.  It is a sad irony.  Sure there are things about larger churches that are wonderful, but large or small, a church focused on numbers to the detriment of disciple-ing their members, misses the point.

When I pastored in Idaho back at the end of the 90’s, facing the impending disaster of Y2K and the ensuing failure and demise of civilization (pause for dramatic and comedic effect), the church was always small.  In this case, the size of the church might have been an indicator of problems, as the lack of significant change might also have indicated.  But the problem was the lack of spiritual growth in the members as opposed to the lack of in-gathering.  Anyone I was able to influence for the Kingdom I sent to another church.  I didn’t want them to gain the bad habits and attitudes of the people I pastored.  The problems of that church, the spiritual failure of the members, and lack of power from the Spirit of my Master were the indicators of problems and what those problems were.  It was not the numbers but the lack of spiritual sensitivity that demonstrated a void of discipleship.  So, I know about this from a standpoint of being on the wrong side of it.

Jesus rose from the grave, the First Born from the dead, and Precursor of all of us who have been called to eternal life.  I celebrate that fact today.  What would have been different in my ministry had I celebrated that every day?  Not to “what if” myself to death, but really, what if I had focused on the resurrection then to the exclusion of death?  What if I had returned every complaint, every back-biting comment, the cynicism, sarcasm, and pessimism (including all my own examples of these) back to the empty tomb?  What would have been different?  The answer is easy.  I would have been different.  I can present discipleship, but I can’t make my fellow believers accept it or change.  The difference in me would have been enough.  Had I been different, the influence I would have had would have been different.  I have no idea what the outcome would have been, whether it would have been different or whether it would have materialized faster.  I just know that I would have been different.

So, today, will I be different?  Will I permit myself to dwell in the cool of the garden?  The ground has shaken, the angels arrived, the guards collapsed and then fled, women came, were astonished and left, and some disciples came and left puzzled.  I sit among the dew covered garden plants staring at the empty hole that once held my Master’s lifeless body.  It does so no more.  Contemplation time is over and I must rise from my place of comfort and walk to the hole before me.  It is now the home for my old self, the self that focused on the numbers, being accepted by my church, by my family, by my friends and coworkers.  I enter the tomb and see the empty shroud.  I take off my own, shedding the burden of oppressive standards of acceptability.  As it drops to the earth, new life enters, breath surges into my nostrils and the lump of clay becomes a living being.

Now it is I who walk from the hole that now holds the body of a dead perspective.  It seems though, that even as I leave, I have this string attached to that empty skin.  Dang it.  Do you despise me for that?  I wish I could confidently say I don’t care.  The scissors cut slowly and difficultly, like cutting an umbilical cord.  I hope soon to have the string severed, but until then, the grace of my Master will have to suffice for my acceptability.  I need to focus on His acceptance of me.  I live to walk in a newness of life.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 24th.

Living Through a Saturday of ‘Tweens

It is the Saturday between the crucifixion and the resurrection.  For some reason today seems detached from the season.  But on the other hand, there are things out of kilter, and askew.  Emotionally, there is stress in the household, and I’m not sure why.  There are things that would explain it, but no one thing justifies the emotional tension.  So, the entry in MUFHH for today seems almost far away in application, at least on the surface.

1 Corinthians 3:9 is normally translated as “We are laborers together with God…” but this preposition is both missing, and in the wrong case.  This case is either called the genitive or ablative case.  The normal use of it is possessive, and would otherwise use the preposition “of”, as in “…of God” or …”of Paul” and flows well into English in that possessive sense.  When the preposition is “with” there is a very different case; the dative case, normally used, and refers to the indirect object and/or subordinate clauses of various sorts denoting close relationship like on, with, among, within, in, and so on.  So, the basic translation of this phrase in 1 Corinthians 3:9 might also read, “Of God we are laborers together…” with the corresponding ranges of meaning.  For instance it could mean that Paul and his crew labor along with the Corinthian believers and they all belong to God.

As my wife is so quick to ask, “so what?”  Well, that’s a good question.  The basic element of Chamber’s position remains, and the understanding with which I ended the last paragraph would support his position even more strongly.  I believe that what is happening in my household is a loss of focus on what my Master is doing through us.  This season marks the most amazing event since the incarnation!  And yet we seem stuck on the fickleness of dogs, outbursts of emotional children, noisy neighbors, and stairs.  The greater reality of the season flies by and we are missing it.  How can there be something more important than the action of the Creator of the universe on our behalf?  This is the drama of all drama’s.  This supersedes all other events in history, and marks the cornerstone of human relations with our Maker.  Everything else in life stems from this event, and we focus on the problems played out in 900 square feet of space.

As Chambers pointed out so well, this leads to burn out.  And so it does, and is.  And it is very timely burnout.  This burnout serves to distract from what is happening, being celebrated, and what is true about this season.  The day is flying by, and microwave ovens or cupcakes are no substitute for a focus on a grave, soon to be empty.  And yet it continues to fly by.

Tonight there is a “party” for the employees at my work location.  We celebrate and dance, drink and eat, enjoy each other’s company outside of work, and see the “significant others” talked about at work.  It seems strange to hold this party just now.  But an international corporation would be expected to have no idea of the portents of the season.  And this one seems more interested in public opinion of the wealthy liberal view point (shared with Europe perhaps?) than with any sort of Christian view point.  This is the group partying tonight.

So, I will go, but it will be a surreal experience at best.  What I hope is that it will also be an opportunity to shine in darkness for my Master.  The darkness of the day is part the darkness of a tomb.  Today, evil celebrates the death of my Master.  In this darkness, it seems as if all the evils of All Hallows Eve rage under the surface of a normal Saturday.  Yet even under that under-current of wickedness flows a powerful river of life ready to surge forth from a dark tomb.  I wait for it anxiously.  The earthquake, the bolt of thunder, the angel, the guards, the women on their way, all witness as the Maker of Life lives again.  I wait in the dew-covered grass in a garden, outside a guarded sealed tomb, restless and unable to sit still.  I feel the energy surging through the ground, it’s coming.  Sunday is coming.  I tremble.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 23rd.

Seeing Past The Popular Guy

I would hazard a guess that this entry in MUFHH was one that came from a sermon of Chambers he preached after someone died who was considered important to the faith.  He brings up a good point, and shows one more reason for not investing too heavily in “personality ministries”.  I am overly suspicious of ministries which are characterized by the “person” who came up with the “model” or “method” or whatever.  So, when I hear someone ask, “Have you heard so-and-so?  Their church is getting huge, and I love their preaching, and…”  Very shortly thereafter, I tune it out.  That is ecclesiology based on personality.

Now, why I say I am overly suspicious is because I admit that my Master uses people to do great things.  So, to be critical of a ministry just because my Master is clearly using a person lacks sense, or at least a level of devotion to my Master.  So, why do I have this prejudice?  I have to delve back into my ministry history to explain it.  Throughout my education, it seemed I followed this guy around who became a famous preacher/church leader.  I didn’t mean to follow him, I simply saw marks of his having been there all over the place.  I was annoyed that he was famous, clearly had shown skills and abilities early on, and that I found him everywhere I went to school.  OK, perhaps I was jealous.

And after I reached a ministry position after school, I kept being pushed to follow this fairly local guy who was focused on marginal, meaningless, minutia from Scripture in order to build “theological” positions.  He turned out to be really dangerous, and I still do not like this guy to this day.  So, on the one hand, jealousy fueled this prejudice, but on the other hand, so has truly bogus church leaders.  The result is a prejudice that I readily admit, which has served me well in guarding me from following people rather than my Master.  That is probably my biggest complaint when I hear people bring up some personality-based ministry.  It seems that people quickly take up the perspective of the person instead of checking that perspective against Scripture for themselves.

I have heard some very fine preaching.  I have heard wonderful sermons, in person, on TV, video, audio recordings, and radio.  But I have never heard a preacher with whom I completely agreed, never.  I would venture to say, that I never met anyone who completely agreed with me either.  So, the common point in this is me and my view of my Master.  So, my personality has formed the focus of my own ministry?  Nope, but my relationship with my Master has.  And I believe that every believer needs to have the same central focus.  Perhaps I guard mine overly, or perhaps I am right on target.  Either way, the focus remains on my relationship with my Master rather than someone else’s relationship with their master.

As Chambers puts it, I should not recognize that I stand alone before my Master and become lonely.  As he points out, Paul saw himself as never alone, even when abandoned by his ministry fellows.  As long I as I stand before my Master I am not alone, and I am on the right track in what I do.  If I stand before someone I hope is standing before the One I call Master, I am in the wrong position.  So, do I abandon others around me who serve?  I hope that sounded ridiculous.  Of course I don’t abandon other fellow servants of my Master.  I just don’t rely on them for my marching orders, I seek the face of my Master for marching orders.  I join my fellows before the throne, we worship together, minister together, find opportunities arranged by our Master together, but do not supplant the position reserved for our Master.

I look at it this way, one important quality of legitimate human authority is that the one in authority sees themselves as also under authority.  So, why would I place such a person between me and my Master?  I can accept their authority and comply with it without allowing them to screen my Master’s voice and presence.  So, yes, I accept and follow authority.  But I also test authority for legitimacy and correspondence to the authority of my Master.  Perhaps my problem is that I test with an assumed result of “not in compliance”, they are guilty until proven innocent.  Well, it may be a problem, but is one with which I will continue to live.  Perhaps I need it more than others to guard against my own special weaknesses.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 22nd.

Pain of my Master?

Irony abounds at 4 am in the lobby of a hotel in NY while waiting for a shuttle van to the LaGuardia Airport.  I can barely think, music and TV blare in the background, and I sit with my laptop trying to think straight about one of the more interesting entries of MUFHH.  Can I hurt my Master? According to Chambers, I can.  It seems that his perspective on John 14:9 is that Andrew did when he asked to see the Father.  It hurt my Master when He was asked to show the Father?  Why does that seem hard to accept?

I suspect that I can grieve the Holy Spirit, and therefore I do something to which my Master responds with sadness.  But hurting the heart of my Master by asking an ignorant question does not seem to fit in the list things I can accept.  While I accept that He is God and knows all things, I’m not and I don’t, and that is one of the things He knows.  So, why would He be pained by an ignorant question I might ask?

What I believe Jesus was doing when He asked Andrew the rhetorical question, “Have I been with you so long and you don’t know me?” is point out to Andrew that the answer to his request to see the Father had already been answered.  Andrew asked because equating seeing Jesus and seeing the Maker of the Universe was not on his mental radar.  It is difficult for people today. 

The concept of the Trinity is baffling, and rightly so.  So, why would Andrew, standing before the Son of Man be expected to have made the leap of logic and faith to see Him as also the Father?  No, I believe Jesus was again teaching His disciples that what they were wanting was not as far or as unreachable as they assumed. 

What they saw was so much more than they expected.  What Jesus was about to do was so much more than the event witnessed by so many in Jerusalem.  What the elders of the Jews, the Roman political leaders, and the soldiers accomplished was complicity with the design of the Father.  How would even the disciples be expected to grasp that?  I’m not sure I really do.  I read it and accept it, but I doubt I understand it.

When I consider that Jesus, the Agent of Creation, entered that creation, and submitted to death within it, I am at a loss.  Does that loss cause my Master pain?  Perhaps a level of frustration at my inability to understand, but I doubt that as well.  The shuttle is coming, the plane will be leaving soon, and I must drag my tired old bones and fuzzy brain on the bus.  Perhaps tomorrow will be more lucid.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 21st.

Sidekick to a Super Hero?

I’m not sure why Chambers sites 2 Corinthians 1:20 and then takes his entry off of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, but he does.  I believe his take on the parable has merit, but by brining in the verse from 2 Corinthians he undermines his point.  The parable may well be about the Spirit of my Master in me, but the verse in 2 Corinthians is about the good news Paul preached and whether his coming to Corinth indicates an inconsistency with that good news.  Paul takes the truth that all the promises of God (in the Hebrew Scriptures) are “yes” in Jesus and extends that into our “amen” to God being through Him as well.

That Jesus’ Spirit lives in me is unfathomable.  I really have no good answer to “why” this is, but I have ample confirmations that it is indeed.  As my Master calls me to things, I venture into them with the Spirit of Him who calls me, not my own resources.  Chamber’s point is that only lazy immature believers will push back on God like the servant with one talent.  They blame the Master and demean Him rather than take responsibility for their lack of success.

I admit that I have questioned God, I have cried to Him in confusion and frustration with what He was doing.  But I don’t recall ever blaming Him for my disobedience.  As an addict, that would fit perfectly with my tendencies, and I probably have blamed all sorts of people and circumstances, but I don’t remember blaming Him.  I have wondered if He made me with the pre-disposition toward addiction.  But that is still short of blaming my Master.  Don’t get me wrong, I have not acted with maturity and sense in regards to my particular sinful compulsions.  I just haven’t blamed them on my Master. 

But I have sought various promises of my Master, and I have seen some of them not come to fruition.  I believe this is for two reasons.  First, my Master is Sovereign.  Second, I don’t believe every promise is for every believer.  I suppose that depends on how I define those promises.  I see every assurance from my Master recorded in Scripture as a promise.  But clearly, not everything He has assured in Scripture is for every historical period or person.  I suppose in that subset of promises which are for His chosen people, most apply generally to all.  But even there, while I consider myself chosen of my Master, I do not classify myself as one of the Hebrews.  I do believe there are a set of promises belonging only to them.

So, while all the promises of my Master are “yes” in Him is true, even for me, I still do not expect to enjoy them all.  I expect only what my Master chooses in His sovereign authority.  Perhaps the second greatest of all these promises is the Spirit of Him who promises.  So, as I venture out into obedience, I do so with the presence of Him who sends me, not just His power.  I see this as very important, because power is neutral, and can be used by anyone able to harness it.  I do not “harness” my Master.  I go, but I go knowing the One Coming Along Side to Help (Paraclete) is truly along side me to help.  That is vastly different than having the “power” to accomplish the task.  In essence, my Master is accomplishing the task, and I am there to help Him.  After all, He is the Master and I am the servant.  In another sense, He is the “Hero” and I am the “sidekick”.

So, I don my mask and tights, let loose a trite phrase, and follow my Master into another day of triumphing over evil with justice.  Holy Son of Man, Jesus! What shall we do today?

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 20th.

Jumping Logs, Tripping on Sticks

Wow, this is timely.  Just yesterday I was on the plane to New York, and was reading over my previous posts.  I came across the one from Friday where I mentioned that I had been blind-sided by a temptation.  Well, today’s entry in MUFHH looks at that very thing. 

Chambers keeps using a phrase in quotes, “retired sphere of the leasts” but I can’t figure out from what he is quoting.  But I can understand how he is using it.  He is referring to the small things that surprise me after I have endured successfully a dramatic trial or test.

The passage is 1 Kings 2:28 where Joab flees from Solomon because he had followed Adonijah.  The interesting comment the Scripture makes is that he had not followed Absalom, meaning that, in the mind of the writer, Absalom and Adonijah are essentially doing the same thing.  That is interesting considering the historical context.  The succession narrative in 1 Kings is one of my favorite Bible stories.  So much is resolved from David’s reign, and I get a sense of David and his household.  They are a busted bunch.

But the focus in MUFHH is on Joab.  Having rejected Absalom, he follows Adonijah.  He was successful in the big attempt to take over by one of David’s sons, but did not see Adonijah in the same way.  He missed the sense of who Yahweh wanted as king, and followed sound political sense instead.  When he realized that, he fled to the worship tent and hung onto the altar.  It did not help him.

I do this very thing.  The One Making the Universe all around me has a purpose in the world I live.  I often follow good sense.  Sure, I am devoted to following Him to another state with no job, and no house.  But will I follow Him in the daily grind?  Will I follow my Master as I enter the elements of this day?  I should work out, it is good for my body, and such discipline honors my Master.  Will I, even though it’s not convenient?  I should watch what I eat while on this trip.  I should to maintain the success I have enjoyed in weight loss.  Will I, when the donuts are brought out as breakfast?  What about how I treat people, or what I tolerate to hear or discuss?  I am in a strange land with people I am barely familiar.  What will they see in me of my Master?

These questions are not the only areas where I can be tripped up, but they are some of my favorite lapses.  That I blog this morning is a step in the right direction.  I know I have more to do, and to watch for.  And I‘m burning daylight.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 19th.

The Tasks of My Master Along the Way

Today, I head for New York, so my next entry will be from just outside the Big Apple. I will be there for several days for work, and it is a great opportunity.  But I also wonder if there will be some other sorts of opportunities.  In the entry today from MUFHH, Chambers uses Moses’ initial response at the burning bush to illustrate being ready for that to which my Master might call me.  He points out a difference between the dramatic level of a calling, and that I should be ready for menial things as well as grand ones.

I travel today with hundreds of people I don’t know, to some place I am unfamiliar, to do something I’ve never done.  So, what if this trip is not about me?  But what if whatever my Master wants of me is something I might consider small?  Will I miss it because of its seeming insignificance?  How can I even measure significance?  I know that I am travelling with three other people from my office.  I know that we will be seated spread out through the plane.  So I can be reasonably sure I will be seated by someone I don’t know.  So, my question for my Master should be, “What would You have me do in the life of this one?”  In any conversation, I would be looking for that place my Master is already at work.

But there are other things I am concerned about as well.  Trips away from my family are lonely for me, and loneliness is one the things I medicate with bad behavior.  So, I will be in dangerous territory, dangerous for me anyway.  But here again, my Master may have a task.  This is also an opportunity to review these past blog entries, and review the path on which my Master has led me.  I have something to read, which I should enjoy reading (I wrote it after all).  But I also have something to find.  The growth I have enjoyed over the last few months has formed a path, and this gives me an opportunity to look back over the path for trends, successes and failures, areas of growth and strength, and some consistent thing my Master may be telling me which I have missed (sort of a forest-tree thing).

So, I have a prepared task, and possible opportunities along the way.  I have good reasons to look forward to this trip, and the usual things to dread.  But it is short and focused, so it is easy for which to pack, and I have no bags to check.  I should pass easily through security since I am prepared, bottle-baggie, slip-on shoes, and all.  So, even the usual problems will be minor annoyances.  But the crowds on a Monday will be the usual, the lines, the waiting, the restlessness of anticipation, and the ‘tweens (that time in between events too short to actually start or continue something, but long enough to be bored).  Oh well, 21st Century travel: It’s not through space like the old science fiction books and movies predicted.  So, off I go into the blue yonder, no longer wild, with one purpose known, but looking for opportunities.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 18th.

Jumping Impatiently Into The Deep End

Have I abandoned everything to Jesus, my Master?  That is the question Chambers poses today.  He differentiates between an emotional abandonment, abandoning stuff, and a crisis of will.  He says the crisis of will is the one that counts.  I wonder.  I have committed many times to the abandonment of all I am to my Master.  It’s just that each time, He takes it, but returns it when I demand it back.  It has been a give and take with me.

In John 21:7, when Peter hears that the One on the shore calling to them is Jesus, he grabs his cloak and jumps overboard, not wanting to wait for the boat.  This is before he has had a chance to speak with Jesus about his failure in the courtyard, but after he has denied the very Master he swims to seek.  Using this passage is important for me.  I learn some things here.  I see in Peter the impetuousness of the man, but also the devotion.  Sure, he lost his nerve when in the midst of the enemy’s camp.  And debate over whether he should have been there or not is pointless.  The reality of Peter’s situation is that he was there, he did deny Jesus, and now swims to have breakfast with Him.

In the rest of the chapter it is clear that Peter feels terrible about what he has done.  He feels genuine remorse, and he has, it seems, since Jesus was crucified.  So, he doesn’t jump into the water with the belief that, because Jesus doesn’t know what he did, they can go on as always.  Peter has witnessed Jesus knowing things He was not around to know, he had to know Jesus knew.  Luke says that Jesus looked directly at him in the courtyard at the rooster crow on the third denial.  Peter knew Jesus knew, and still jumped, still swam to his Master.  Jesus was still his Master.  That is what I need to learn.

When I fail my Master is He still my Master?  I believe this depends on whether I am willing to throw myself into the water, not waiting for the usual circumstance to bring us together.  If, in spite of the failure, I jump in and swim to the One I failed, I demonstrate a very important belief.  I demonstrate that I believe that it is better for me to be the punished stable-slave of my Master than to never return to His household out of shame.  It is the story of the prodigal son played out over the Sea of Galilee.  Am I willing to face my Master having failed Him, yet again?  I know it is not a comfortable option.  I know that I cannot pretend, because others may be fooled, but not my Master.  I know that I will have to face my shame, and perhaps around a fire with my fellow servants as we share a meal with our Master.  I can’t do it because I ought to do it, I must do it because I can’t avoid it.  I can’t not do it.  I must cast myself into the sea and swim to the One I betrayed, denied, and rebelled against because my very existence demands it.

Let me reveal a part of my dilemma in this.  I still struggle with belief that this Christianity thing is real, God is real, Jesus is real, and so on.  Every once in a while this thought sneaks up on me and plays games in the back yard of my mind.  I hate it.  It doesn’t stay around long.  But it doesn’t leave because I reason my way out of it.  I do not rehearse the arguments for God’s existence to show it the door.  I worship. 

Is it strange to defeat my doubt with worship?  I worship the One whose existence I question.  I sing and pray to the One whose enemy I entertain.  I attend church, not to gain deeper insight into Scripture, nor do I attend with my fellow servants of our Master so that they can see me do it.  I attend so that I can see them, so I can join them in lifting my voice in song, so I can join with them in seeking our Master’s Character in Scripture.  I go and participate in church because I need these frustrating, frail, flawed fellows like me.  I jump in and swim to my Master in a school of fellows.  We beach ourselves in worship to our King, gasping for more of the scent of His presence.  And we die there.  And we are raised there.  And we leave there with more life than we could imagine, a life shared, not just renewed.

Not everyone has that experience, and not everyone goes to church for that reason.  But that is my experience.  A beached dying fish is considered a very dumb fish, selected against in a Darwinian perspective.  And some with whom I attend church subscribe to that perspective.  As I said, my fellows are frail, frustrating, and flawed; just like me.  But when I go, I go expecting that experience (usually).  It helps to go somewhere familiar, but sometimes I need to go elsewhere.  It helps to go with others who seek the same experience, but sometimes it helps to go with those who need to be reminded they are beached fish.  I am sometimes the Darwinian fish afraid to hit the beach, and I sometimes abandon myself to the shore.  But when I stay in the water it is because I forget why I swim, where I am headed, and Who waits for me.  Rarely if ever is it out of fear.

Today is Sunday, April 17, 2011 and I swim for the shore to gasp in the fragrance of my Maker as I die on the sands marked by His footprints.  Please forgive me if I sing off key.  Gasping dying fish hold notes very poorly.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 17th.

Living in Belief From Enlightenment Past

There are times when I have lucid moments with my Master.  He shows me something and I get it, I see it, it makes sense, and I get excited (because they’re rare).  What Chambers writes about here is making use of those times to act on that experience on the way down or out of it.  I should not be amazed at how often that I fail exactly at that point.  I am so shocked to be in the moment, it fades before I act and then I don’t act since it passed. 

I have had some very lucid moments, and I have had times of semi-lucidness, and so on.  But the common element to each of them is the sense of truth.  I would have a revelation of something new (to me) about my Master, or about my relationship with Him, or insight about needs of those around me.  While in ministry, it was easy to act on them, since that was expected.  Now it is unusual, and somewhat disruptive, possibly embarrassing or vulnerable.  But those times, since they are from my Master, are also calls to action.  Chambers is exactly right there.  The passage he uses is John 12:36, and this passage follows the resurrection of Lazarus after being dead over three days.  The people around Jerusalem want to see the One who raised Lazarus.  The Elders want to kill Jesus and Lazarus.

While on His way into Jerusalem, the Father speaks audibly in response to Jesus, Greeks seek Him, and He speaks of the sort of death He will suffer.  John makes the comment that though Jesus had performed this sign of raising Lazarus, they still did not believe in Him.  Jesus says to them, “While you have the light believe the light.”  The light, one of several thematic references in John, will be leaving; and with Him, an opportunity, a “kyretic” moment will pass.  The people have an opportunity to respond to Jesus as their Master, but they are to tightly married to their desire for a political king.  They can see only as far as their subservience to Rome, not their slavery to sin.  This is me.

When I get so distracted by my woes at work, am I any different than these souls who witnessed the death of the Creator?  When I lose my cool driving eight miles in traffic, am I better off or clearer of vision than they were?  How about when I get angry with my daughter because she was mean to me instead of using that as a teachable moment to calmly provide guiding consequences?  Or when I am sarcastic or cynical with my wife over some meaningless comment or action, am I still in touch with the amazing revelation of grace of my Master?  Does the reality of the Savior with which I have been provided sink below my conscious into the fiber of my personality?  When I am by myself, no one sees what I do, I feel the tendrils of my old behavior and I wish for it, whether I give in or not, that I wish for it shames me!  Jesus loves me, He has my back, and I am at His service.  Yet when I do these things, I stand over His cross, hammer and spike in hand, ready to add another stroke to his pain.

What do I believe, and what do I do, and do they match?  What light have I been given, and is it fading?  And when it fades, what will I do then?  Will I believe still, will I act as if it’s true, and will I continue to obey?  Or will my actions, thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes look more like those who live as if there is no Savior except themselves?  Even now, thoughts move through my mind, memories of things I have seen, things I have done.  Even as I pray in electronic form, my mind still is not clean.  What light do I have, and will I believe while I have it?  Perhaps the term I need to adopt is becoming a “Son bather” and soak up the light of the Son.  I hope for a fourth degree burn to the bone from light of His face, so He can rebuild me from the core in the form He desires.  Wow, sounds painful; like being crucified (Ephesians 2:20).

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 16th.

Down With the High Places!

Ah to be back with a normal keyboard again!  And today is a good day for it.  The entry in MUFHH is a timely one…again.  Today Chambers uses a passage which is familiar in the history of the kings of Israel.  It seems the kings before Josiah had one repeating feature.  They put the country on the path toward God, but did not take down “high places” (cultural centers of worship outside of Jerusalem).

There is discussion on why that would have been or would not have been a good leadership move.  Part of the discussion is over whether pagan worship took place at these “high places”, or syncretic (mixed Yahweh and pagan), or unsanctioned Yahweh worship.  There seems archeological evidence for either syncretic or totally pagan, but the long time periods may blur the issue.  In either case, the Scripture, and therefore God (the real inspiring author), did not approve.

The application for me is find my remaining “high places” and remove them, even if I feel as if my Master and I are doing well.  As it turns out, I had a rough reminder yesterday of how close my addictive behavior is to the surface of my life.  I quickly gave in to some temptations which I have avoided really well for several months.  I did not cross over into some of my behaviors which characterized how I used to live, but it was embarrassingly and shamefully close.

I was unprepared because I figured yesterday would have been an easy day (ok, that was my first mistake).  The move is finished, and the transaction is closed on the house, we are completely in the apartment, and all should be more tranquil.  I even have the internet again.  What could be wrong?  As my very wise wife pointed out, I should have expected yesterday to be very hard.  She pointed out that, after a period of high stress, it is common to have a wash of emotion which was kept under wraps by the tension of the stressful event.  I was living off the adrenaline to a degree, and it was not as difficult to fend off temptations.  After the event (move) was over, the emotional dam bursts and I was not ready to deal with it.

So, I have a “high place” still.  I still need to practice the disciplines I have been, in fact, more so now.  I still need to use my prayers to position myself before my Master.  I still need to accept what He has revealed so far.  I need to go no further than what He has revealed so far.  And I need to remain available to Him at work, at home, and in between.  So, I continue, with the little additional information I have, to wait, to worship, and to walk before Him.  I continue to remind myself that He loves me, He has my back, and I am at His service.  I continue to be accountable to the public who read this blog (hence the current confession).

These things may seem small, but have been, and will continue to be important to me.  There is no more important thing I do, than to make myself more available to my Master.  There is no better element to my life than my connection to the Creator of stars, the One gathering them into galaxies, and then spreading the galaxies out into the universe.  The maker of the sun and moon calls my name and nothing can compare with that sound.  The Master of matter summons me to walk in His presence, and I clear my calendar, empty my task list, put on my comfortable walking shoes, and head out the door.  The One knowing every detail of every action before it occurs leads me into another day.  Today will be a better day, but not because I possess the power to change it.  Today will be a day I am more available to my Master, more sensitive to His will and power, and more at peace than I have been at any other time this week.  And it’s Friday!

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 15th.

The Yoke's On... Me?

Today should my last entry using my phone for a while. The move is complete and we are apartment dwellers for a time. In this next stage, we transition to another state to care for some aging family. We hope to be there by July, but truly only my Master really knows.

Speaking of my Master, the One leading my family on this journey of stages, I find today His timing is ironic. Today Chambers uses the reference I mentioned yesterday about sharing the yoke of Jesus. The reference Chambers uses is in Matthew 11:29. Jesus calls the weak and weary to come to Him for rest, because His yoke is easy and His burden light.

It's only my Master Who could call the weak and weary to share a yoke in order to receive rest for the soul. Sure, the burden is light, the yoke is easy...for Him! But how will it feel to the weak and weary humanity? I have no worries that it will seem to be non-existent. I know it will seem that way. With the Creator of the universe, Maker of matter, pulling alongside, how can it be otherwise? What sort of weight would I feel next to His power and might?

I think of the image of a small dog working furiously to pull a sled, feet dangling off the ground, as the lead Husky pulls the weight of the sled easily along. That small dog sees the progress and is excited at his success, but also impatient he can't speed it up. The illusion of control and ability is possible when unequally yoked with my Master. But the reality sets in soon enough. I am enjoying a sense of that reality now. The house is empty and the work to clear it is done. My wife worked, my friends worked, and my burden seemed light (although my muscles are sore). It was the might of my Master that achieved the result, and the people He worked through were extensions of His might.

The burden of my Master pulled along by our shared yoke (actually His yoke I am invited to share) may include the weight of the world, but One making the very stars and the worlds revolving around them, pulls along with me. I can move through the cares and needs and not be crushed because I do not move alone. I can face economic and ecological disaster with assurance that my Master pulls the massive weight of it. I am free to engage without being overwhelmed. The need on my part is to engage, without fear, in the needs of this world. I will begin this day by engaging the needs around me in prayer, then in person. Pardon me while I strap on the yoke and get busy. My Master calls.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 14th.

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Casting or Rolling, Get Those Cares On Him

Not to be a picker of nit (whatever nit is), but the word cast in Psalm 55:22 means "cast" not "share". I think Chambers has gone a bit wrong here.

I get his idea, but the concept he refers to is worded differently in Scripture. Jesus says to take HIS yoke, not that He will "share" ours. In Psalm 55, the issue is different. This is a verse partially quoted in 1 Peter 5:7, and the point is that the trials of life, wicked neighbors, evil bosses, grumpy family, and slow drivers should not weigh me down emotionally. By casting my cares on Jesus, I let the "concern" or "worry" of them be gone. I am free to address them without feeling stressed.

So, I go through my day with the compound phrase running in the background, "You love me, You have my back, and I am at Your service." Part of why I can say that with assurance is because of this verse. I can cast my cares on my Master, the One watching my back. Sure, there are burdens I "share" with my Master, but I share His burdens; hurt and pain in this world, people running headlong toward hell, death, the sin of the world, you know, the small stuff.

It sounds like a joke, but these are the true attributes of this world which I can't control. While "yoked" with Jesus, the burden of them does not crush me. With my Master "pulling" the weight of them seems light. It's a large matter of perspective. The enormous quake in Japan and the resulting radiation leaks from fractured nuclear energy plants is not something I can handle, even though it may effect me tremendously. This is the burden of Jesus, and I share the burden of it with the Creator of the universe.

So today I will walk before my Master carelessly sharing His burden, but only because it's Him. Otherwise I'd be a wreck.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 13th.

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Whose Life Is It Anyway?

This one of those entries whre I see what Chambers is getting at, but not some of the details. I believe the context of.the passage in Romans 6:9-11 refers to the life of Jesus after His resurrection. Chambers is making his point based on the position that the life of Jesus to which Paul referred is the life He lived throughout His time before the crucifixion. The conclusion he draws is that we have the same sort of life available to us because of the Holy Spirit living within. The point he makes I agree with, his use of this.passage I do not.

I belive that Paul is making a point that it is the resurrected life of Jesus which enables us to live free from sin. The Holy Spirit could not come unless Jesus left. I don't pretend to really understand the "why" of that, but there was a quality of life that was to change in the believers once it happened. The power of the resurrection of Jesus courses.through me because of the resurrection of Jesus. I agree with Chambers that this power is not available to me, but rather I am available to Him.

The wonder of this.truth is not in whether it is based on the resurrection of Jesus or not. The real wonder for me is in that I can enjoy it at all. Yes, He frees me from slavery to sin as I submit to His power within me, but in this submission I touch the very Creator of the universe, and He wants me to! The wonder for me is that I am loved by God! My mind is blown that He has my back (why would He care?)! My heart is broken because I am at His service (why would He use one like me?). Who is this God that takes people of such weakness as me and and uses them for His glory? I consider myself somewhat of an embarassment to Him and yet He continues to use me. I have to continually reach out to Him because my sin is so close at hand, at work, in transit, at home, wherever. Without His presence in my life I would be a wreck. Yet He delights in my dependence because His power is displayed. I become a sign post of freedom for others. I prove that God accepts people and changes them, even stubborn rebellious ones. What a strange Creator and King I serve. What will He have me do today?

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 12th.

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The Strange Timing of Meaningful Life Events

Yesterday, while packing and moving, I found an old journal entry I had made on the back of a star chart. It was about witnessing the occultation* of Saturn by the Moon, an extremely rare event. It was also the most surreal thing I have ever personally witnessed. It was like watching Saturn setting from the perspective of standing on the Moon. The entry was dated the night of 9/10/1.

* An occultation is an astronomical term used to refer to one object passing out of sight behind another. So Saturn passed behind the Moon, the Moon occulted Saturn.

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Raised to Walk Before my Master

One of several difficulties I face daily is living my life in light of the qualitative truth that I am the domicile of the Spirit of Jesus. I live like most people, like I am my own domicile, but that ignores the truth that I am now the visitor, and Someone else now owns the house. Ironically, this is also a truth I am currently living out on more common level as well.

Jesus has died and been raised from death. He has conquered the penalty and tyranny of death over His human creatures. I enjoy that victory because I accept His invitation to do so. I don't enjoy something I have earned, but rather I enjoy a gift offered to all human creatures.

In this state of enjoying the resurrection life of my Master, I live pretty much like everyone else. I work, I eat, sleep, enjoy a family, and repeat day after day.

But there supposed to be a quality that is distinct about the things that fill my day. Something should be qualitatively different. The qualities of my Master should be evident through me. Which qualities? Holiness for one; though not exactly His quality of holiness, but holiness to Him. I am also to share His unity with the Father, again not exactly as He does. I am to see others and life events as He does, and this is in the same way. But to see others and our life events as He does requires a level of sensitivity to Him, listening on a spiritual level, an active awareness of His Spirit within me that I do not exhibit every day. This is where my "resurrected life" seems to fall short.

I am doing some things differently. I am reaching out to my Master in the afternoons. I am blogging (even without internet with my phone). I am adding to my prayers the phrases which put me more in His path, within His reach, and at His service. So I have an expectation that the qualities of my Master in whose house I now live, will become evident in my daily actions.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 11th.

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My Crucifixion Revisited.

Have I reached that point where I accept that sin must be killed in me? That is question which Chambers poses, and one I have circled for weeks. There are so many sorts of sin in my life, where do I start? Where Jesus directs.

One of the blessings of my life in Christ Jesus, my Master, is that I don't wander aimlessly through my life with Him. Part one of entering that life was confessing Him as Master. I no longer serve myself, or, at least I shouldn't. But that also means that in His work on me, I have His guidance and direction. My Master, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, is interested in me; takes action in me, around me, through me, and with me (actually He invites me to act with Him).

So, on one hand, I have reached that moral decision that sin must be executed within me. This is not a sacrifice where it is laid on the altar, this is the burning of rubbish outside the camp, this is the "scape goat" released into the wilderness. No one partakes of this ritual, not even (or especially) my Master.

Sin is that stain which mars the apperance of the holiness of my Mater visible in/through me. Windex will not make more clear and Him more visible. Only my Master possesses the astringent I need for this sort of purification. I present myself to Him. He takes it from there. What sin He finds, what flaw draws His attention, and what foolish assumption He deflates; these I surrender as He points them out.

Pardon me while I don my hospital gown, submit to the knife of my Master Surgeon. And, yes, this is going to hurt. But not as much as I suffer now leaving it in place. Ah, here comes the laughing gas! See you on the other side!

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 10th.

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What? You Haven’t Seen Jesus Yet?

In this entry from MUFHH, I run into one of those “Christian” references which irritate me.  “Have you seen Jesus?”  I am never certain what is meant here.  At least, at one point, Chambers uses the term “vision” which at least implies an image of some sort whether seen in the mind or through the eyes (usually, in traditional Christian-speak it means in the mind).  The reason this reference bothers me is its use to differentiate between the spiritual believers, and those who are aren’t quite as spiritual.  Paul seemed to have a similar problem with some of the churches he was involved with in various regions of Asia Minor.  Which only serves to demonstrate that some things never change.

On the other hand, there is an experiential value to a vision of Jesus which is hard to express, but is very powerful.  A philosopher might consider it almost empirical evidence except it cannot be reproduced.  A scientist runs into much the same problem.  An author would flail about for word pictures and still come to the bottom of the adjective, metaphor, and simile barrels.  A business person would be unable to quantify or qualify the experience that defies ratios and analysis (how frustrating).  An administrator would be unable to organize anything approaching a good representation of the event which could be collated or filed.  An artist would paint and sculpt the most beautiful abstract images, and still not be able to exactly capture the experience. 

Sounds intriguing, but does it really differentiate between the more spiritual and the less?  I don’t believe so, and here’s why.  I too have had a “vision” of Jesus.  In my younger adult days, I was enjoying myself and my life but with a nagging darkness in the back of my mind.  I knew no one knew about a part of my life which was clearly unacceptable to my Master and would be to anyone else as well.  Yet I was a “leader” in our church.  At church one morning, while sitting in a pew toward the front, piano-side, during the music where we remained seated, I was “sucked” into a vision of entering the gates of heaven into the shining presence of my Master.  It was very fast, rather short, and literally took my breath away.  My reaction to it startled those with whom I sat.  I heard no voice, received no message, and saw nothing very distinct.  I was merely left with the distinct impression and image of being drawn (as if flying) through the “gates” of heaven and into the presence of my Master, though I could not see His face for the brightness of the light coming from Him but glowing everywhere.  Then I was back in the pew.  It felt dramatic and I was pondering it when the preacher started the sermon on whether or not we were saved.  He suddenly had my rapt attention because what he spoke about played on the shame at the back of my mind and I was convicted that I was not saved, not in a relationship with my Master, had just been fooling myself, my friends, and my family for all these years.  But I had that vision. 

I believe that Jesus did not give me that vision (forced it on me really) because I was more spiritual, but because I was less.  I needed that extra faith to be able to hang onto what He had done, been doing, and was continuing to do in my life.  Yes, I needed to hand that portion of my life over to Him, confess it to someone I trusted, and let others hold me accountable to it.  But that is not accepting Jesus as my Lord, and believing in my heart God raised Him from the dead.  I had done that already.  My problem was not that I had not entered into a relationship with my Master, but that I had not surrendered a portion of my life to His mastery.  The vision I had been given was to bolster me against a necessary onslaught.  The application to the pastor’s sermon was different for me, but I would not have seen that had I not had the vision.  I needed it because I had a weakness no one knew about.

So, perhaps, visions can be “rewards” for some who have achieved some spiritual milestone.  I know that a vision can lead to a deeper connection to Jesus, or understanding of what being in a relationship with Him means.  But I also know two other things.  I know that visions of my Master come from my Master, and I know that He provides them for a purpose specific to the person experiencing it.  I don’t think of or qualify the someone who has had a vision as more spiritual.  In fact I typically qualify others as more spiritual than myself anyway, vision or not.  It’s not a source of pride that I was given a vision to strengthen me at a point of weakness, but rather a sign of my weakness.  So, I will boast all the more in my weakness, though that is not what Paul was talking about.  It still points out the amazing extremes of the grace of my Master, and that is a valid point to be made.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 9th.

Raised From Weight Addiction? Can I Do That?

This entry in MUFHH seems to complete the one from April 6.  That focused on the cross, and this on the resurrection.  Chambers uses the passage from the disciples on the road to Emaus again, but only to introduce the resurrection as part of the Messiah’s work.  The rest of the entry refers to Paul’s views on the meaning of the resurrection.

Today, I am struggling with the emotions from a spike and then plateau in my weight.  I have been enjoying a sense of control over food and my body that I have not felt for many years.  One bad eating day and one day without effect, and I am depressed.  How fragile is my emotional state?  I will loose focus on what my Master has given me, and how much that has cost because my control over my body is irregular and probably illusory. 

My Master has been raised and given me this life of resurrection.  His very Spirit resides in me, a slum compared with His usual residence.  I have this unimaginable connection to my Master available to me, but really active within me to change me.  When I am obedient to Him, He makes adjustments to my world view, my actions, my attitude, my very soul to make me more like Jesus.  But my weight is what I focus on.

So, in selfishness, I make it sound like I have been listening for God, enjoying communion with Him, and writing from a connection to my Master.  But in reality, my buoyancy has been from personal success I claim for myself regarding weight loss.  Jesus rises from the dead and I miss standing in the garden waiting for Him  because I’m focused on the scale and the menu of the day. 

Well, that’s wrong.  My place is in the garden.  I belong in the place from where my Master will emerge, to watch and wait for a newness of life.  I wait for a life I can barely imagine, but which I can begin enjoying now.  And He invites me there.  I may have gained weight, lost control for a time, and threatened something I have enjoyed for several months, but my Master loves me, He has my back, and He calls me into His service.  The solution to the problem of how I feel is to focus on Jesus.  Let my eating be a devotion or sacrifice to Him.  I can let myself be free from slavery to the scale.  I know I do not need to eat until over stuffed.  That is pampering (which code for worshipping) the taste centers of my brain in order to feel better in the emotional conduits.  It’s a chemical dependency, another form of something from which I am enjoying some freedom.  It really just moved.

The reality is that my Master is far more satisfying than any food.  Perhaps I need to “fast” from the scale for a few days.  It would really be fasting from my attachment to the sense of control I feel and on which I have been relying.  That would probably be a better sacrifice.  One which would place me more in the hands of my Master.  That is a much safer place to be than slim.  Raised to walk away from the old sense of control  into a newness of life dependent upon my Master and His Spirit.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 8th.

Communion With the Risen Life of Jesus

I read the title of today’s reading and immediately thought I would read about why my Master is not always crystal clear with me.  Instead it was about when to relate what He has been clear with.  It initially was a let down.  I want to know why things are not clear right now.  I want a road map to where we will live, when we will live there, and so on.  It seems I am not ready.

In Mark 9:9, as Jesus, Peter, James and John are coming down from the mountain where Jesus has just been transfigured before their eyes, He tells them to not tell anyone what they’ve seen until He rises from the dead.  I’m sure that they understood that to mean “never”.  They really did not accept that Jesus would die soon.  So, understanding what they saw was not easy for them.  They didn’t have the fuller context of the purpose of Jesus’ life. 

So Chambers says that we, in the same way, are not to relate the word we have from Jesus until His risen life is alive in us.  He describes this having communion with His risen life, as knowing about the impartation of the risen life, and having His Spirit.  This bothers me on two levels.

The first level on which this bothers me is the level of reflection on my ministry history.  While in the throes of my addiction, could I have had communion with the Risen Life of Jesus?  I wouldn’t characterize it that way.  I know I can be hard on myself for what I was gripped by at that time, but I still, in my more lucid moments, would not characterize my time in ministry as being in communion with the Risen Life of Jesus.  I would have said, and would say now, that I had His Spirit living within.  I would say that I was able to interpret Scriptures.  In fact, that is the period in which I came up with a theological core around which to do Biblical Theology, as well as “Knot Hole Theology”.  So, I believe I had part of Chambers’ requirements for being able to relate to others what my Master had related to me.

The second level on which his definition bothers me is the level of reflection on where I am now.  I confess that I have not been free from this addiction long enough for its power to fade from my life.  In fact, each week I still feel the tendrils of its power during my day.  And I admit that the frequency of this sensation is increasing lately.  This does not bode well, and I have some idea of where it comes from.  I know that stress, fear, and shame are my primary triggers.  I know that currently I face an unknown path and that causes both fear and stress.  So, understanding where these struggles come from is not difficult.  If this evil within me is so near the surface, how could I say that I am now in communion with the Risen Life of Jesus?  So, if I am not, why do this blog?

Here again, I believe that the Spirit of my Master does reveal truth from the Scripture to me, and I believe that His Spirit still does reside within.  So, of the three definitions, I still have the latter two.  Is two out of three sufficient?  Or perhaps I am in communion with the Risen Life of Jesus because I experience and live by His grace daily.  Perhaps in the daily struggles within the consequences with which I live I do commune with the Risen Life of Jesus.  Can I say, as Paul did, that the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me?  I think I can, but I am not so sure that I can claim I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live.  That is where my trouble lies.

My Master is truly Master of the Universe and everything in it.  He created it, He sustains it, He continues to create it (as my brother so superbly pointed out to me), and He entered it to save His human creatures.  He died in a horrible fashion, but suffered an even more traumatic event than physical death.  And He was raised from that death three days later.  I believe that it is this resurrection which completes the death of my Master.  I believe that it is this resurrected life He now lives that defines my relationship with Him.  As I follow Him, it is through a death which ends in a resurrection.  My understanding falters at the point of the details of that death and life, but I believe that is where I am headed.  It may also be possible that is where I am currently (hence the faltering understanding).  Perhaps I am in communion with the Risen Life of my Master, but this struggle I have with my past behavior which still invades my life today argues against.  Is this the work of the shame, one of my powerful triggers?  Or is this struggle simply the residue of the death throes of my past?  I want to be crucified with Christ, my Master.  I want to no longer live but I want Christ to live within me.  I want to live this life in the body through faith in the Son of God, the One loving me and having given Himself up for me.  I want to have communion with the Risen Life of my Master.  And this body will go and do whatever my Master wills, as Audio Adrenaline once put it, “…like some kind of zombie.”

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 7th.

The Cross or the Grave, or Both?

Is it a semantic thing to combine the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus rather than to focus on the crucifixion?  I find myself very alone on this issue.  Here, I’m the one appealing to my buddy Paul.  He seems to focus on the resurrection with the cross rather than the cross alone.  The passage in 1 Peter mentions that Jesus took our sins to the “wood”, and does not mention the resurrection.  The context is about Jesus suffering and using that as an example for our daily conduct.  But I call the day approaching, Resurrection Day rather than Easter.

In my way of thinking, to focus solely on the event of the crucifixion is like half-baptizing.  If the resurrection is not an equal component, then leave people under the water.  I was “raised to walk”, out of water, but also out of my dead ways.  Here is my divergence with a lot of “cross theology”":  I believe that Jesus did not overcome sin on the cross, but rather in resurrection.  Sin brings death, and He suffered that on the cross, but He went beyond the penalty into life, and it is that life I experience instead of death.

Is this semantics?  I don’t think so.  It could be though, because I am fairly lonely in my view.  Most seem to believe that Jesus paid it all on the cross and because of that we have life.  I only pause at the cross, and then, when it is finished, keep walking for an entire lonely Saturday, and wait by a guarded grave.  It is here I believe I will witness the conquering of the penalty I have worked so hard to earn.  Had I stopped at the event of the crucifixion, I would have witnessed the physical death of a man.  But having witnessed the crucifixion, I can then in the resurrection witness the re-united Triune God wildly overcoming my circumstances.  Again the ground, terra-firma, is shaken.  The shocked and grieving creation is again shocked, but the grief is shattered in joy as the One through Whom all things were made once again emerges into all those things.  Angels, guards, stone rolled away, and an empty tomb are all setting for this second of impossible events.  They fade into gray as the light of the Son shines forth from what was once dark.  Here I sit, here I worship, here I am undone as God wins my war.  The cross is where my salvation starts, but I must follow through to the empty grave, where it is finished.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 6th.

Cup of What?

As Easter (Resurrection Day) approaches, I know that a deep sadness and emotional release is coming.  I know it like I know waves off the California Coast come in sets of three, like I know that every spring the tree in our back yard will dump yellow…things all over the yard and roof, and like I know that the sun rises in the morning.  Every year is a similar experience.

The sadness comes in entering through my imagination into the suffering of my Master.  I listen as He answers the Sanhedrin, I watch as He is scourged 39 times, I hear the ring of the hammer on the nails.  But I first enter a garden late at night and watch and listen as my Master turns a corner I never knew existed.  The One who commands the storm to cease and the dead to come forth, weeps and prays to avoid a “cup” yet to submit to the will of His Father.  If a “cup” exists which is so powerful that it causes the Son of God, my Master to avoid it, I am frightened.  He is not supposed to be afraid, He is supposed to calm my fears. 

The contents of this “cup” have been debated for centuries, and I do not believe I have the answer brighter minds could not come up with.  I believe that what Jesus had to face is unimaginable.  I have no frame of reference for it.  So, if that is the contents of the cup, then I wouldn’t recognize it anyway.  When I first try to accept a Trinitarian God (difficult enough on its own), and then consider what must happen to one of the Persons for sin to be truly atoned for, my ability to reason fails.  Some never go there because it is impossible.  But as I read Scripture, the punishment for sin, all sin, is separation from this Trinitarian God.  So, when this Trinitarian God pays this debt there must be a separation, at least in my opinion.  As I said, brighter minds disagree. 

This is not mere theological semantics as I watch my Master in the garden of Gethsemane as His sweat shows blood drops.  As I hear Him pray to avoid this “cup” I shudder, because the ETERNAL Son of God is about to cease to be “One with the Father”, the severing of a connection I cannot really fathom when it was intact!  What the Agent of Creation, the One Fullness of God, is about to endure will shake the entire creation and shatter what was firm and sure.  But here in the garden He weeps and prays…for now.  At the moment I read about in today’s passage, He is nearly overwhelmed by grief and distress.  Here He prays to avoid this event, however it is described or understood.  But in a moment, He will stand up from His stance of prayer, the betrayer will arrive, and He will lead His captors into this event with focus and determination.  He will go to the cross, not be led.  And on that cross…the impossible will occur, and the very things He created will be shaken in response.  Everything changes in ways impossible to follow.

The creation was never understood before the change, and at that moment the worm enters the chrysalis for a metamorphosis, and life itself seems to die.  In a very real sense, it does die.  And yet I watch, I see the event, hear the crowds, smell the sweat, feel the heat, taste the dust.  And I am powerless to act, only watch.  It happens to me, but I am not the victim, but the oppressor.  It is my sin, my choices, my rebellion, my selfishness and MY APATHY toward my Master that will drive these events.

But I get ahead of myself.  Today I watch in a garden as my Master prays in grief and anguish.  And I tremble.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 5th.