The View From Right Here

I am using a different tool to blog this morning, and I hope it speeds the process somewhat.  One nice touch is that it includes a link to the entry in MUFHH, which might help provide a context to understand some of my more bizarre rantings.  For this entry, I have to admit that the timing is something I would only ascribe to my Master.  For in this entry, I find something relating to a struggle my family is having right now.  The answer I find in the last paragraph, but even the contents serve to encourage me as I go through this with my family, attempting to stand as a spiritual leader.  This is not easy since my track record does not naturally induce trust.

The passage is Revelation 4:1 where John is invited into heaven to witness what must happen at the end, or before the end, or after these things, or something like that (Revelation is not one of my favorite books, it’s too much like much of Ezekiel and the last two-thirds of Daniel for my limited understanding of contemporary history to grasp).  The point that Chambers focus’ on is the invitation to come up higher.  He differentiates between this invitation from my Master versus the invitation from the Accuser.  When the Accuser invites the place is always perilous, but when my Master invites, the place is always open and wonderful.  I’m not sure that is a hard-and-fast rule, but is a fairly good place to be.  The description is in some ways like the position we are in now, but only somewhat.

I sense God’s presence and voice more now than I have in the past 10 years.  I feel clearer and more aware of myself, my foibles, and feel less justified to hang on to them.  I see myself as I believe my Master sees me, or at least more so.  And I believe this sense of sight helps me perceive my Master better as well.  But not perfectly.  I still wonder where the limitations are for my ability to see my Master and hear His voice.  I wonder if the past several months have served to clarify what was unclear months before.  In any case, our situation is somewhat perilous, yet not desperate.  So, have we reached Chamber’s “table land” or “pinnacle”?

Well, my sense of the situation is that regardless of what it might be or how we got here, we’re here.  Where is my Master leading from here?  There is no blame to place nor is there something to be gained from trying to solve this dilemma by figuring out how we got here in the first place.  We’re here, where will we be in three-to-four weeks?  I’m not sure.  We may be still here.  But I have reached a place where I am sure that my Master knows.  What I am not doing is looking for someplace using all the means people use to find places.  That is bothering me at the back of my mind, but not as much as I suspect it should.  Packing is the same problem.  It tugs at the recesses of my mind, but not with the same nagging stress I normally encounter when I avoid something I should do that I don’t want to do.  I have recently felt the difference, and that makes it easy to compare the two.  So what does it mean?  It means that I need to be prudent to do what is necessary to prepare for what I see at this point, but not put too much emotional stock in what I can see from this point.  I sense that there is more than what I can see going on at the moment, I just can’t see it yet.

So, have I been invited to a higher ground to view things more as my Master sees them?  Possibly.  But it is also possible that my Master has simply granted my prayer for peace in this place at the elevation I currently rest.  It could be that I simply gaining a better view from where I am; that I am finally allowing the clouds of dust I have worked up over the years to settle, and now I can see the world around me more clearly.  I will need to let you know in a few weeks.  I will be desperately trying to hold on to this discipline through the next few weeks.  I will probably need this therapeutic practice even more as our situation progresses, and the revelation of my Master unfolds.  Will I have my fields ready when He brings the rains we have prayed for?  Ah, suspense does make for a good way to end a chapter does it not?

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": March 27th.

Reservations About Resources?

The methods of my Master are indeed mysterious, but I would expect that from someone personally responsible for gravitational effects which exceed the discernible quantity of matter in the universe.  After all, if He can create massive bright stars from clouds of hydrogen, of course I would be unable to understand even the simplest of tasks He takes on.  Seriously, He baffles great scientific minds who have spent their entire lives looking at one small corner of His creation.  There can be no expectation that I could comprehend Him.  And truly, anyone looking for God should start somewhere about there anyway; looking for someone inexplicably powerful.

So, if I can leave aside His methods as beyond my understanding, should I then decide to inventory His resources?  Isn't that a bit like taking inventory at the Palo Verde Nuclear Power station looking for deficiencies?  How would I even know if it didn't have enough of something?  How about I just roll up my sleeves and use litmus paper to determine if the chemcial waste at Hanford has been all cleaned up?  I'll pass.  Yet in spite of being able to note and accept my inability to do these attainable tasks, I have no qualms about taking inventory of the resources of my Master.  As if I can survey the things He can use to help me, and spot those places where there is not enough for the task.  Sure, that makes perfect sense.  And yet I do it without even thinking.

I pray, "Master, if you can..." Really?!  How about, "Master, if you will..."?  That would make more sense.  While typing, I sometimes slip and captialize the "M" of "my" instead of "Master", and I imediately think, "was that really accidental?"  Perhaps my desire to be on the throne of my life leaks from the depths of my id through my ego and passed my super-ego and creates a puddle through which I pass and leave tracks all over my day.  When will I learn that only my Master can contain and transform my basest qualities into spiritual fruit?  When will I finally accept that self-control comes as a fruit of the Spirit of my Master, not of myself?

My resources are drawn from deep empty pits which may have been wells at one time, but were quickly exhausted.  The resources of my Master are from the limitless vastness of His glorious riches and power.  I can't reach it to see or touch it.  I can't indentify any of its various pieces to count it.  I can't pretend to understand even the barest minimum of the workings of any of it to assess its value or usefulness.  And yet I feel perfectly at home doubting that He has the resources to meet my needs.  I call it "wondering", but I and He knows better.  "I was just wondering, Master,..." is never a good way to begin speaking to the true Master of the Universe.  It flys in face of the very thing being done.  How can He be this Master of the Universe, and I truly believe that, if I am unsure of His resources to help me?  Which part of this doesn't belong in the picture? 

So, OK, He has the resources and I cannot qualify them or quantify them.  He has my interests at heart, and has condescended to be my Master rather than ignore me (which I probably would have done long ago).  He has called to me, commanding me to wait, worship Him, and walk before Him.  He has refused to meet my time schedule, my price point, and my preference of modes.  He continues to be quite content to baffle me and confound my attempts to "help" Him along.  As long as I do those things, hang onto those preferences, attempts to help, and grow weary of waiting I will have no peace.  The answer is to surrender my clipboard and pencil, shed the accountants tie, put away the financial ratio analysis tables, and enjoy the commands of my Master.  He didn't call me to audit Him, He called me to walk before Him.  I have no business in His warehouses (which I couldn't even reach anyway).  Pardon me while I go outside to play in the fields of my Lord.