As with most of Chambers’ entries, this one examines and probes my stance before my Master. Is my stance toward Him, focused and concentrated? Or is my stance oblique, taking Him in as well as all the other options vying for my attention? Or is my stance facing Him at all? Chambers address the oblique and focused stance.
Clearly from all the other entries, the position of Chambers is that I am to be focused on my Master in all of my life. He didn’t come up with that, he got it from Scripture. As I observe my “stance” lately, it has been less oblique than it has been, but I still suffer from distractions around me. The very things I see my Master doing become distractions. I stop looking beyond the wonder of the action, missing the Prime Mover of all things.
In gaining a better and better view of this impending move, I still feel a sense of excitement. The sense can go two ways, it can degenerate into fear of the unknown details, or it can grow into energizing anticipation. The deciding factor is my faith. My faith is dependent upon my stance. The less oblique my stance, the greater my faith. When my Master fills my view, then I don’t even notice the unknown. What is known outshines everything else.
I confess that I am not that focused yet, I am still oblique enough in my stance toward my Master that circumstances still distract me to some degree. It’s really strange to look back over a day, or even a few hours, and see the silly things which distracted me, caused me stress or fear. When I shake myself back to reality, and return my focus back to my Master, all stress and fear is gone. Even knowing that, starting my morning with that, rehearsing it on the way to work, I still get it wrong after turning on my computer at work. Is that selective memory, or evidence that my stance is more oblique than I thought? It’s probably both, like being distracted by movement out of the corner of my eye.
So, the goal in any given day, including this one, is to remain in an closed, facing stance focused on my Master. The morning ritual, the drive in, the start up for the day, and the insatiable clamoring of tasks and customer; all must find their context and meaning in my focus on my Master. So, what is my Master’s interest in this next call? What is my Master’s interest in this next task, fix, solution, conversation, or application? I need to remember that He does have an interest in all those daily minor details. The washing of a dish serves to teach a lesson of keeping my life clean, so does answering a phone, typing an email, and examining data to develop a solution.
What would You have me do today, my Master?
Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": June 10th.
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