Not to down-play my education too much, but it really hasn’t brought me closer to my Master. I like it, and enjoy using the skills and things I have learned, but it’s not like it makes me more spiritual or gave me a closer walk with my Master. The only thing that has moved me deeper into my relationship with my Master is obedience.
My experience has not been quite like Chambers describes though. As I obey, my Master hasn’t immediately opened up the next thing. Sometimes He has been teaching me patience and the peace found in waiting on Him. In those instances, the obedience was drawn out over a period of time.
What I have learned in the past ten months has been much more valuable that what I learned in the previous fourteen years. At school I learned how to learn as well as accumulated a lot of facts and some skills. None of it really prepared me for life with my Master, or, as it turns out, in church ministry.
In my experience, my Master has revealed that He is Master of circumstances, Master of timing, and Master of means. That’s great and all, but the resulting knowledge came, as Chambers points out, as I obeyed. When I submitted to His change of circumstances (or clearer revelation of what was really going on all along), I felt peace; but He didn’t immediately reveal the next circumstance.
When the house sold three months before we expected, my Master revealed Himself as Master of timing, but this still came after expectantly waiting for the next thing. We submitted to His timing and He opened up a place to live, but He showed that to us before the house closed. Again, it was not so much obedience to my Master as it was adapting to circumstances He orchestrated.
When all my attempts at coming up with a new job at my company failed, I just put the problem of provision in my Master’s lap. He immediately provided a job I hadn’t expected; the one I had done differently. He revealed Himself as Master of means, but that had been going on with my wife’s job even before I was offered mine.
I guess what I am learning is that as Master of timing, El Shaddai sometimes waits for me to obey, and sometimes waits well after I obey, depending on the lesson. I see Him as Master of timing, but the truth is He is really the Master Teacher. So, when my education prepared me to learn, in some ways, I was prepared to learn from my Master. It just has taken me a long time to pick the right teacher to listen to.
I am a learner, a student, an apprentice, a servant. I am all these to my Master to some degree; some more than others. I doubt my apprenticeship will include stellar ignition or subatomic reorganization. But I suspect that love and grace and mercy will definitely fit within the apprenticeship role. I suspect that servant will be a role somewhat like “practicum” or when Jesus sent out the 12 and 72.
So, as a student of my Master, I have a role to fill requiring submission first. That is one of the things I learned from school: I had to do the homework. Today, I don’t know what the homework is beyond doing my job well, but as anything develops beyond that, I will endeavor to submit to it, and complete it. I think I hear the recess bell, I better get back inside!
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 10
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