Chambers continues the idea from yesterday, where I am to make friends with my opponent on the way to court. As he put it, my Master intends to sanctify me through restoring human relationships, even if I'm not entirely at fault. I still see this as a very practical application of this passage. Today, he says that the process of sanctification is so important to my Master that He will go to the last penny to restore the broken relationship.
Chambers says that He goes until we submit my right to myself to my Master, but I believe that it's not that simple. I believe that my Master did not just truncate the punishment when I submitted, but my ability to endure it increased. With me, manipulation is too close to the surface. I can appear to submit to get out of trouble without the mental or spiritual required soul-deep decision and determination needed. This has been my pattern with my addiction, and I apply it to other areas as well.
So, the process of sanctification my Master uses with me can be strict, but He knows I need it. It has been working, and I am enjoying life more, even though life has not necessarily improved. In fact, in my work arena, things have actually worsened to some degree. I have been able to maintain a much better attitude through submission to my Master and accepting that I am what He has made me. It has taken the death of some illusions and pretensions about myself.
I am not as strong as I want to be. It was my Master who made me this weak. I am not as smart as I think I ought to be. But my Master limited my ability to learn. I am not as good looking as I want to be. And it was my Master who decided I would look this way. So, all this trying, and pretending has been to disagree with my Master about who I am, and what I should be. I have fought my Master on these points, and my relationships with others have suffered because of it. I would have sacrificed anyone to ensure that I attained my illusions, and I pretended that I had.
In a Christ-centered 12-Step program I was a part of for nearly 5 years, the method used to work through a fourth-step (Made a fearless and moral inventory of myself), was centered on relationships. I looked at my experiences, not as historical events only, but through the lens of the relationships involved. This is a direct application of this passage as Chambers uses it. The process takes time, and it takes several applications of the step to reach the level where my Master can reveal the deep problems I have been ignoring.
So, today, as I turn in the U-Haul, I will be gracious as I have been given grace. I will make friends with my "opponent" (only marginally an opponent, and only in a business sense). I will seek to ensure that my tone and treatment of my daughter is not in proportion to her attitude with me (reacting), but always showing the deep love I have regardless of her attitude. I will respond to my wife's response to her circumstance of a house of boxes, and spending time with her parents before they leave (the stress of being torn between two "oughts").
It is my Master who makes this possible; I am not capable. We are finally here where He has worked so thoroughly to bring us. In this spiritual incubator I will be transformed. I just don't know what I will be. I hope I like it…oh wait, that's the silly criteria that got me in this trouble in the first place. I hope I am good clay for my Master Potter.
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