Standing In A Dark Place

It is this view of my Master Chambers uses today that causes me to wonder when the difficulty will come. He says there is no strength without strain, that my Master gives me the needed strength for the moment, not the entire week, month, year, or life-time. The strength is there as the effort is applied. This makes good sense when I consider Syrian General Naaman, the man born blind and the pool of Siloam, the 10 Lepers from Jericho, and so on. These miracles were completed in the midst of obedience or at the end. The lepers Jesus healed left for the priest still lepers, the man born blind walked blindly through the streets to the pool to wash, and Naaman wasn't healed until the seventh dip in the Jordan. There are other examples that I think also demonstrate the desire of my Master for me to obey without seeing the how or why first.


The danger comes when I want to see everything in place before I obey. I run aground when I start trying to chart my own path through a calling. I wind up left behind when I wait beyond clear direction for clear reasoning. These are dangers that I experience when I obey my fear before my Master. When I am afraid, and act or react in that fear, I am already wrong. I decided to come out to Nevada and made plans to do so before I saw the methods of provision from my Master. I was coming and I had no idea how my Master would provide, but I did know provision was His responsibility, not mine. It's not the servants' job to provide for their master in general, and my Master has no needs I can supply (no needs of any sort that I am aware of).


So, in the instance of coming out to Nevada, I followed this method of obeying blindly. I can testify that it works amazingly, and my Master amply supplied over and above my dreams and imagination. But it will not always be that easy. He may bring me to almost complete failure before success, or He may bring me to a sort of disaster which He considers the right arena for growing my faith. I fear enduring hardship; I have said it before. But I already know I endure anything because my real future is secure. I may not want to endure, but I already know my Master will enable and empower me to endure; intellectual knowledge, and not yet tried in the furnace of reality.


Desperate times produce desperate people doing foolish desperate things. A cousin of my wife's was kidnapped, robbed, severely beaten, and left for dead by a couple of guys who he bought a meal. They tried to kill him and thankfully did a poor job. I hope, because their hearts weren't in it, but the torture that he experienced instead was demeaning to his soul, not just to his body. They were caught and will pay a price for their deeds and poor decisions. Just blocks from our house a casino was robbed by gunmen, meth is a plague on this town, and marriages are in shambles. There is little safety to be had here, and lots of room to fear. But to what end? If I give in to the belief that my adversary rules this town, then how will I stand for my King?


The truth which may not seem obvious is that my Master is master of every acre of this planet. It may seem like His adversary rules vast tracts of human habitation, but it is an illusion. He is King with rebellious subjects, but King none the less. He does have an adversary, but this one is already defeated. I stand in the purpose and calling of my Master, not my own purpose and desires. I stand as a Knight of the Realm and Servant of the King, not as some hallucinating fool jousting with windmills. And I do not stand alone. If I did, I would gain the credit and attention. Instead my Master has called me to join with others He has called in standing in this depressed hopeless place. It will be my Master who gains the glory because I will be lost in the host of His army; a knight among knights, servant among servants. 


The result will be that I love people who I would otherwise fear. My calling is to reach out to my neighbors who I know little or nothing about. The work of my Master is coming, but in the time I wait, I will love those at hand; my family, the nearest neighbors, the store clerks, and restaurateurs. That's a lot of loving, and I'm not naturally inclined to do that. Practice, again practice. 


Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, August 2