Faith With Weakness

From earlier posts, Chambers seems to see the daily grind of life as the place that faith is built and practiced.  Here he puts the test into dramatic events.  Dramatic events are where the character of God is obscured or possibly made invisible and the question is whether I will continue to believe in His divinely revealed character described in Scripture.

 

The three Hebrew men in Daniel before the furnace are one example.  The trial of Job is another example.  In both of these examples, there was no assurance or voice of God to assure deliverance.  Each of these had to come to terms with not being delivered and still holding on to their faith.  That’s a test.

 

I have run out of some things I take everyday, two prescriptions for conditions I have.  One of those conditions I had hoped would be temporary, and I could just fade off the stuff and it wouldn’t be any big deal, no one would notice.  Nope.  It shows.  I really do have this weakness, and I really do need a drug to help me fight my depression.  I go to the doctor tomorrow, so it’s no big deal.  But it does show me that the submission I needed almost a year ago I still need.  That’s not what I had hoped for, but it’s what I suspected.

 

That is not a test of faith.  Such a revelation is not a time of not seeing the qualities of my Master but still needing to believe.  Instead, it’s a test of my pride.  I have a weakness, but am I willing to submit to it?  There is a problem with me that affects my mind, am I willing to admit such a thing?  It has been a week, and my emotions have been all over the place, and now I am struggling with sleeping, getting up in the morning (I seem more tired), the anger hasn’t showed up yet, but with being tired, it’s just a matter of time.  The frustration riding below the surface is ripe for me since my job jumped into hyper-speed last month.  I’ve started eating emotionally again, and I have a slight weight gain.

 

I suppose I could wait for more symptoms, but why?  If other indications are here, do I need to crater before I admit my weakness?  Why would I do that?  It’s not a test of my faith, of my belief in the qualities of my Master when I bring myself to the brink, threatening to jump over.  It’s a test of my pride, my willingness to submit to my Master’s wisdom in making me as I am, not as my ideal would be.  The way He has made me requires dependence and submission to Him.  The way I want to be looks good to others.  I show strength and love the attention.  I already know that is way of death, it stinks of it.  Why would I find that path attractive still? 

 

I am truly one sick puppy still.  I am still totally dependent upon my Master, His grace, His mercy, and His power.  I am what He has made me, with all the weaknesses that direct me to Him.  I am in need of a Savior still.  That is who I am, and who I remain.  Now, allow me to speak of Who has made me this way.

 

The Master of the universe makes stars even now.  He expands the reaches of the universe beyond the human ability to measure, and yet traces the patterns of the invisible material making up sub-atomic particles.  He defies human desires to reach beyond the planet they live on with a force we cannot live without, nor replicate effectively enough to take with us from earth; gravity.  He has trapped us here, yet allowed us to look out on His creation, given us minds to consider it, wonder about it, and think about its origins.  It points to Him, and He uses it as one of many markers of His presence and power.  In His desire for His human creatures, He made it possible where we could not, to relate to Him passed the inherent nature of rebellion against Him.  He did so by paying the requirement of His awesome wrath through Himself, the Son.  He took on Himself the penalty required by His holy nature and formed the only way we can relate to Him.  He went to this extreme for His human creatures in spite of the continued rebellion we perpetuate in His presence.  He sacrificed His Son for us, and we treat with contempt such an action on our behalf.  And still He loves us.  Still my Master calls to us, still my Master reaches out to this world which tries in vain to bite His hands filled with peace and love.  The creatures looking out on His vast creation and seeking to see the infinite dimensions of the building blocks of matter, matter that together lives, all are in rebellion against Him as feral beasts little better than the beasts they study.  And yet He loves still, He does not repent the sacrifice made, He does not retract His outstretched hand.

 

So, what, will I rail against the One who made me with my weakness?  Will I cry foul because I’m not what I think I should be or not what I want to be?  How can I believing the previous paragraph?  What’s the problem not solved by His outstretched hand?  Where is the room for pride or self-righteousness?  What else can I do besides reach for His hand and accept what He has?  If that gift does not cure my weakness, I will boast it that weakness because it has forced me into the lap of my Master.  I will point to His grace which is sufficient, that makes any weakness trivial, that shows off more what my Master can do and His power more than anything I can do without power.

 

Jesus is my Master, He loves me, He has my back, and I am at His service.

 

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 31

Living Life: That’s the Hard Part

Seeing death as relational rather than physical I thought was pretty radical.  But it makes even more sense when I put sin in the same relational basket.  Now the reason death is relational is explained.  If sin is choosing independence from the Master of the universe, then sin would be death; being out of relationship with the Master of the universe.  On the other hand, since I can’t bridge the gulf in that relationship, I would have to be dependent upon what the Universal Master would do on my behalf.  So, Jesus is the solution placed before me.  The terms, “redemption” and “rebellion” now fit better into my understanding of the solution and problem with the world.

I don’t like dependence.  I don’t like going to the doctor or dentist for that reason and more.  I don’t like not being able to direct my destiny.  But, on the other hand, by giving up my independence and my destiny to the Universal Master, I gain access to Him.  So which is better, directing my destiny on this lump of space rock, or sitting down with the One having created space and everything in it and learning about Him?  Sure, as an American, I want independence, I was born to it, I have a sense of entitlement to it.  But I have another human condition which places me independent where I was never intended to be.  I belong in a garden.

So, when I consider the solution of the Universal Master to this human condition, I see a burden as massive as the shear crush of history and future of the human creatures crawling over this terrestrial ball.  All that hereditary isolation from the Creator, couched in the terms of independence, was summed up and consumed in the penalty paid by my Master.  For me, the event of Jesus’ death is more than an event of physical suffering; the physical suffering was almost a parable compared to the unthinkable amount of suffering at its climatic end.  When my Master, having revealed Himself as Three, suffers a separation within Himself, then suffering is redefined, and I cannot wrap my mind around the enormity of it.  That separation is the undeserved, substitutionary death which bought my access back into the garden.

But I’m not there yet.  This redemption I have gained the benefit of which was so expensive is not yet complete.  So, here in this place, I am directed to model my life after this indescribable gift.  I have been redeemed, and I am to live in this universe as such.  What does that look like as I relate to my wife, my daughter, my friends here in this community, and my church?  Claiming to understand life and death, dependence and sin, blessings and curses is all well and good.  But understanding is borne out in living.  If I really understand, then I will live in this world.  If I behave as if I’m dead, then what do I really understand?  And why do would I live as if I were dead?  For me, it is usually out of fear.  How ridiculous is that?  I have life but am afraid to live because of what the dead people might think.  Really? Seriously?

I am a fool, that much is clear.  I just need to become fine with being a fool for my Master, considered such by the dead around me.  I have spent too much time being a fool before my Master, acting foolish in His eyes.  How much that has cost me I will not know until I give an account of myself before His throne, but one day I will know.  The irony that strikes me to the heart is that, even as I played the fool, His love and grace never waivered.  He hated the sight of what I did, yet His love and desire for me never dimmed.  Even in those times, He had my back, keeping me from the deadly deep waters around which I played.  He kept me from things I can’t imagine, and the enemy was never able to snatch me from His hand.  Unbelievable, yet I am a testimony to its truth.

Today, my wife and daughter head to the Sierra Nevada’s for a weekend retreat.  I will be here holding the home for their return.  I will be alone in one sense, but I will be communing with the Universal Master in another.  The question is will I give into my compulsion for independence or will I surrender my right to myself to my Master.  It’s easy to choose life on the front end of the day, in the beauty and cool of the dawn.  It is another to hold that choice in the heat of the afternoon when reality bears down hard.  I hope to be able to post tomorrow that I enjoyed victory in my Master today, and then to post that again on Sunday.  That’s what I hope, I pray for that hope to be a fertile seedbed for faith, and that faith to lead me to love as I am loved.  Life is relational, and so my Master leads me to live.  I may be visiting you later, just humor me, I’m following the lead of my Master; I’m just not as graceful at it as He is.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 7