At first I thought Chambers over emphasized prayer by calling it the "greater things" referred to in John 14:12. But as I continued reading, and as I remembered the examples from even recent church history, I admit, he may be right.
He mentions at the end the things that will be done when my orders are received from my Master, but those are not the "greater things", those are the things which Jesus did. Greater things result from the contact with my Master that is really life anyway. But I need to be disciplined to do it.
The pastor at my church yesterday spoke from Galatians 5 and covered the deeds of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. He was right on point with the lack of compromise in my Master, but present in so much of those claiming faith in Him; including me. Those compromises more often than not are what keep me from connection with my Master. If that connection is the "greater things" than my Master did in His earthly ministry, then my failure is even more huge. Not only am I giving up time with the Maker of stars and Tracer of quarks, but I am failing to accomplish His greater things in my life.
Had the "greater things" been more dramatic like healing, raising the dead, or feeding five thousand with rocks, then failing would be difficult to pin to me. If I look at it as prayer, all my excuses evaporate like the thin mist they are. What stands revealed is the compromise I have made that keeps me from my Master's presence; the greater things I am called to.
To the degree that this blog is prayer, and to a degree it is, this process I go through each morning helps keep me in my Master's presence. The problem is that I don't blog all day. This is the same problem I have always had with prayer. At some point I stopped praying, and life swept away the effects of the time I just spent with the Master of the universe. That wasn't always the case, but it was a very real problem for me.
What I need is the daily grind prayer life that permeates my whole day. I'm not even close to that yet. I see it, and have mentioned it several times. It needs to become my focus as I try to wrap my mind around that being the "greater things" I do because my Master is before the Father once again. Part of what I need to do is unlearn the scale of success put in place from my youth; the number of souls won to the Kingdom. I need to replace that scale with how saturated my life is with conversation with my Master. Maybe if I use a hammer, the paradigm shift might work easier. I'll start with a rubber mallet though.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest, October 17
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