Daily Life With my Master

I am challenged at the day-to-day level of living out my faith.  Daily stuff seems well within my ability to manage, so I don’t give much thought to reliance (and therefore submission) to my Master within it.  But that lack shows in my relationships with my daughter, my wife, co-workers, and my community.  They are part of the setting of my daily life, and, in the eyes of my Master, just as vital a part of that setting as I am.

I guess that really gets at the heart of the issue with me.  When I rely on my own abilities and perspectives throughout my day, then I become master of the day-to-day.  I begin to treat people from my own store of love, grace, mercy, and gentleness… Some of you already know how “deep” those stores are.  What I really need is the fruit of my Master’s Spirit to live out those qualities in me throughout my daily routine, every day.  Those qualities are only present in me as my Master stores them up.  They aren’t my stores at all, but His; on deposit as it were.

The idea should be that I am a steward (as a knight and servant should be to his King) of the qualities my Master invests in me.  I don’t rely on my stores of mercy, gentleness, goodness, peace and so on.  And, perhaps more importantly, I don’t develop the expectation that I somehow grow my own reserves of such qualities.  Mine just aren’t the same level quality of personal quality.  I can’t live as if I practice with my Master’s stores so that I can learn to grow my own. 

If I want “the good stuff” in my life, why wouldn’t I continue to rely on His qualities?  Because I desire home-grown control.  I want to be king.  There’s no other reason I would.  And such desire for power is earthly, fleshly, born of fear, and stark rebellion against my Master.  It is also how I currently live out much of my daily life.  So, what do I do?

To an extent, I’m doing something in writing these blog entries.  But I really need more.  I need to practice reaching out to my Master throughout the day.  I need to practice invoking His name as I answer the phone or place a call.  I need to consider my Master’s perspective as I read email and type responses. 

Today, I demonstrate one product line for some of my team mates.  This is an opportunity to reach out to my Master as to encourage my co-workers up against an insurmountable challenge.  It is also an opportunity to show off.  In considering my Master’s perspective, these people are just as important element to the setting of my life as I am.  So, my focus should be on honoring His desire for them, His interest in their lives, His love and grace for them.  He may not be interested in making their lives easy (this is earth not heaven), but He is interested in their lives about Him.  Therein is peace, patience, gentleness, and goodness.  Maybe if those qualities come out through me, they will inquire about where I got them.

My day should be about my Master’s perspective on my daily routine.  There are no heroics in barracks life, but most of my time is there, not in the amazing events of life.  How I live in the barracks will make life on the battlefield better.  Discipline in my daily duties will carry over to discipline on the battlefield.  So what I do today has importance for the rest of my life.  It’s not just another day…well, actually it is, but this ordinary day is a setup for the extraordinary one around the corner.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 12

Every Sunday is Atonement Sunday!

Today’s MUFHH post is perfect for a Sunday.  This is the day of the week where I am most easily aware of the work of my Master.  Sunday’s are the easiest day to remember the Atonement for my deepest problem, my hereditary problem.  Each Sunday, our church holds communion.  It was a bit strange at first, and is a task to keep it fresh each week, but the pastor does a wonderful job by getting different men to share a devotional before we  partake.  It is fresh for them, and so, it is fresh for us.  And each Sunday I am reminded of the work of my Master on my behalf, and I share that remembrance with a hundred others.

I can do nothing for my own salvation.  Even my choice of my Master was part of what I was designed with from before birth.  I was wired that way, and I was placed in that environment.  It isn’t fair when I consider so many who weren’t given that environment.  I pray that they were at least wired to receive from the Universal Master, but I also have a responsibility to share what I have been given.  I have a responsibility to go after those who were not given the environmental advantage I had.  I go after them with the intent of displaying what my Master has given me, and might be giving them.

I play a video game based on movies but with Lego characters.  There is no dialogue, instead they play a form of charades in short video vignettes as segues to the next game area.  In some sense my sharing of my faith is like those charade vignettes.  What I do means more than the  noise I make doing it.  It all should be communicating the Atonement.  As Chambers asks, “where is the discernment of the Atonement in this thing, and in that?”

If the work of my Master takes center stage in my life, then it forms the cornerstone for the rest of the building of my day.  All the people I touch in the various parts of the country and world should be somehow impacted by the work of my Master on their behalf.

I translated the passage for this morning from Romans 6.  The message of that passage is that I am a slave to something, but I am free to choose my master.  I can choose either the Universal Master, or I can choose to serve my fleshly nature of desires and emotions.  In it is verse 20 where Paul says that while the Romans were slaves to sin they were also free to righteousness.  I had to really think this over until I realized that they weren’t free to both, nor enslaved to both.  They had, at some point, chosen being enslaved to sin.  So in verse 21 he asks what benefit they derived from their choice. 

I have lived like that for years.  Until I finally surrendered my need to be “healthy” and my need for independence from whatever, I was enslaved to my fleshly weaknesses.  Once I gave up that “need” I found freedom I have never known before.  It took surrendering something I never expected to have to surrender.  I wanted to surrender my sin, my attitudes toward others, and so on.  Instead it was my fear of falling into the diseases of my family that had to go.  I have a family that has suffered multiple sclerosis, dementia, heart disease, and, so it seems, depression.  It was my fear of those that led me to avoid health issues, fear them and doctors.

The way our world goes, I will probably die of some sort of cancer, but I will only go, by whatever means, at the time appointed by my Master.  If, before I go, I suffer dementia, or multiple sclerosis then I will receive from my Master’s hand as I have received the other blessings He has given.  I have often wondered where those with dementia and Alzheimer's go before they die; perhaps I’ll find out before I die. That’s a brave face on a terribly frightening thing for me.  But perhaps my prideful hold on my own mind is one of those things I will need to learn to let go of.

Whatever my destiny in the mind of my Master, I am redeemed by the Atonement paid by my Master.  He has made up what I could not in His own requirement of justice and holiness.  He made it possible for me to relate to Him and has drawn me to Himself.  The degree to which I swim against the currents of His Spirit is the degree to which I suffer spiritual exhaustion.  When I swim with the current in the river of His Spirit, I am exhilarated and invigorated.  Why I try to swim upstream I have no idea.  What is it I think I missed up there that makes me want to go back?

Well, I have a day to jump into.  My family returns today and I have a little work to do before they arrive.  Blessings on you, and I pray you are reminded of the Atonement you have received this Lord’s Day.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 9