Learning to Learn from my Master

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

Come to The Master for Peace and Rest

This is one of the entries in MUFHH where I just want to go and sit quietly with my Master for a while.  My powers of concentration lack much that looks like power, so I will probably be right back.

In Matthew 11 Jesus’ call to “Come to Me” directed at those to whom He has revealed the Father, those considered foolish or infants, and those He called out of that generation and those cities.  In other gospels, He calls out those words at a festival.  The call is still directed at those who are spent and carrying heavy loads.  He promises rest, a refreshing rest for the whole person, not just the muscles or bones or mind or heart; His rest is for the whole soul.

I’m doing well, even though I have this weekend to myself.  I have things to do, places to go, and people to hang out with.  It is silent right now, but even that is relative.  I still hear the hum and buzz of the actions of other people.  I am not alone, per se, just alone in the sense that I am not in the house with anyone.  But even here, I hear my Master call me to come to Him.  As Chambers says, it’s not to do something of consequence, but rather to be somewhere of magnitude.  What can I come up with that is better than the presence of the Universal Master of protons and stars, galaxies and quarks?

Today I have work to do that will put me with other believers.  I have a family to help that will put me with other believers.  And I have a festival to attend that will put me with all sorts of people.  Somewhere in there I hope to clean the livingroom.  These make up my short todo list for the day.  In all of them is the opportunity to come to my Master, and from the foot of His throne to minister and be ministered to.  I have need of both, since others are blessed in both.

I feel a sense of peace over this day, but it is an energetic peace.  I am excited to jump into it.  But first things first.  Breakfast is a necessary element if I am to work much.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 8