Service Impossible

I can't serve the Lord either. In Joshua 27:19, after the people have said that they would serve Yahweh, Joshua replies that they can't. And it was true, they couldn't. It's also true for me. I am capable of a lot of things. I speak to people about stuff and sound so knowledgeable, and about a lot of it I am, and about some of it I guess. It's my job, and I do a fairly good job of it. I adapt, I learn, I seek answers and solve problems really well. So it is very easy for me to become self-reliant.

But I cannot serve my Master. It's not that I don't want to serve Him it's that I'm not capable of serving my Master. Think about it: It is my Master who made the sun with all its shockingly destructive and horrifying power; He made stay where it is, a massive hydrogen fusion explosion constrained by the gravity of its own mass, and keeping massive solid bodies of rock and gas in motion around it. This is the sort of thing my Master has done, and from the looks of just this galaxy, He's done it over and over with astonishing variety yet regularity.

I can install a ceiling fan, sort of, under good circumstances, with lots of trips to the store for stuff I forgot or was ignorant I needed. Is it reasonable to expect that I can serve such a Master? I can't. It isn't reasonable. Yet my Master calls me into service. He calls me to wait, worship, and walk before Him. He reminds me that He loves me (the ceiling fan challenged servant), that He has my back, and that I am to be at His service. The only explanation is that He chooses to use me for His pleasure, because He wants to. It can't be because He needs me for anything in particular. It cannot be that. It must be for His pleasure. Perhaps I'm fun to watch flounder around in my self-importance.

So, in this calling to walk in service, I walk, seeking what? The only ability my Master has given me which is useful to Him is my ability to choose. That is what was given in the garden at first. That's where the wheels came off, where our race nose-dived, where what was beautiful and full of life died in an ugly fashion. The only thing that survived was the ability to choose. But then the choice was to obey or not. Now the choice is to submit or not. It's a semantic difference, but an important one. They both deal with trust, faith, hope, and a view of myself in relation to my Master. But when it comes down to it, I can choose to submit to my Master and His perspective, or choose to live in submission to the master of the air and his perspective of me. It sounds like an easy choice. The problem is that I like the initial perspective of the master of the air. It's a perspective of apparent power and strength and security. It looks good in the packaging. Unwrapped it's a disaster.

Today, I bring my ability to choose into play. I choose to submit to my Master, and His perspective. He wants me to do something, and I'm not sure why. It entails investigating or interviewing a pastor. I think it's to encourage and support him, but I have no idea what for, what any particular problem might be, or anything. It seems I have something to learn. So, I need to learn it. That takes submission. I choose my Master. That much I can do. The rest is up to Him.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 9