Work or Stay Home Sick? What Would Jesus Have Me Do?

Today I feel better, but not great.  I am still sick and I will attempt to go into work and last as long as I can.  I need a shave, to wash my hair, and a hair cut.  The hair cut will have to wait.  Sure I have things to do at work today.  I have email to catch up on, I have phone messages to answer, and I have lots of work from the convention that needs to be entered and followed up upon.  I will b busy.  My head will be fuzzy.  And I will very tired.  So why go?

The entry for today talks of my Master’s appearance to the Apostle John while he was exiled on Patmos.  The response of John when he sees my Master in His glory is to fall as dead at His feet.  The reason is that John had not seen Jesus in this way before.  He had seen Him as a Son of Man, and he had seen Him transfigured.  But this vision he has of my Master is very different, and not familiar.  John was given a gift to see my Master in a new, more powerful way.

I go to work, not because I have been given a new vision of my Master which makes me fall as if dead.  I go to work because I have already seen my Master as One enduring suffering on behalf of others.  I go for my team.  I will be gone as of next month, and what I do now matters little to my pay check.  But the team is behind, my month is behind, and, although my year-to-date is just fine, I have a contribution to make.  I go for others.

On the other hand, what disease I have is communicable, and my team can easily become infected with it.  I run the risk that it can be transmitted airborne, so just breathing the same air with me is dangerous.  So, how is this really for others?  Am I not putting them in danger even as I claim to be working on their behalf?

Well, yes.  But my Master sought people who were not convenient.  I read of Him going where He was out of place.  Sure there is the risk that what I have is able to be spread to my team, but I have measures I can take.  The need out weighs the risk.

The other reason I go is because I am not sure that I will be able to last all day.  I go because I know I can at least make a start on my duties.  I hope to last all day, but I will need to balance that with how effective I am being versus how dangerous I am being.

What I really want is a new powerful vision of Jesus.  I want a vision of my Master that causes me to fall down as if dead.  I have seen things that have taken my breath away, but a vision of Him I still lack.  I want the effect of driving out fear, the effect of grounding faith so that I can move on to higher ground of belief and experience.

It all sounds very dramatic and impressive, but my Master has lots of other ways to draw me deeper into Him.  My imagination failed to see the option from my work which He brought into play.  He may not decide to provide that way, but it was a reminder and an assurance that He will provide.  That was something less dramatic which took me into deeper faith with Him.  I can rest in the promise that He has my back, and walk obediently in peace.

I will go into work and see what happens.  I may stay or I may not.  I will obey the prompting of my Master and leave or stay at His command.  Perhaps on the way there or once there I will be given the gift of a vision of Him.  Or perhaps, I will know the peaceful grace of assurance of His care.  It’s a win-win day of blessing ahead for me.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": May 24th.

Vision Versus Ideal

I had never considered the difference, if any, between an ideal and a vision.  I would not ordinarily place them together I suppose.  When I think of something as an ideal, I think of the “best” that something could be, which I consider unrealistic or irrational.  When I think of a vision of something, I think of the way something could be which was given or imparted from someone or somewhere else.  A vision does not, in my mind, arise from within, but is given from someone else, shared.  In my mind, I have the choice to accept or reject a vision.

These are not the dictionary definitions of these terms, but they are close.  A vision does not require an external source, I just think of it that way.  So, Chambers differentiates them by one having a moral inspiration.  He says a vision has that moral element missing in an ideal.  I suppose that may be true in a very narrow sense of both words.  Used as they are today in business and other realms, vision seems now to have some sort of meaning beyond, or distanced from, moral.

Business seeks to come up with a “Vision Statement” in order to have some sort of direction.  I don’t hear anyone seeking an “Ideal Statement” to guide themselves or others.  But such statements of vision do not have to be moral in the sense that they are about right, wrong, good, evil, or even about God in any sense.  A church might seek such a statement, but business rarely would.  So, part of my understanding of vision is tainted from this use.  But part is from experience with my Master.

Vision is something I have had at times, and each time, it has come from my Master.  I never consider something from Him as an ideal.  An ideal has this sense of unobtainable perfection to it.  But for me it also derives from within me and my ability to imagine.  That is not a great source.  A vision from my Master on the other hand has the element of attainability because it’s fruition depends on His involvement.  Such a vision has a much better imagination and creativity as its source than any ideal.

So, I suppose I agree with Chambers here.  I would not have put them together, and I would not have compared them otherwise.  But I can see the need to do so.  I held an ideal in ministry that did me in.  I had unrealistic expectations which did not come from a vision from my Master.  In fact, much of the time I prayed for vision which did not come.  My ideals fostered illusions about people, and the process of being “disillusioned” was a painful one.  That is part of what caused my crushing depression after ministry.  The loss of illusions was a necessary part of my spiritual growth, but harsh to experience.  This process has been to demolish my ideals of my life with my Master.  I have some still.  When I recognize them for what they are, I can easily surrender them, remembering the pain the last ones caused.  But recognizing them is not easy.  I like to think they are all gone.

The work of my Master in me is not complete in this area, and perhaps today I will find another ideal lurking in the deep recesses of my mind.  They are like faulty programming which keeps causing errors, but only when certain programs are run.  I don’t use those much anymore, so I still have some to find.  I guess the process is working patiently and submissively with my Master to “debug” my mind and heart.  Perhaps He is really Pest Control exterminating bugs and rodents within me.  Fumigation here I come, pardon the smell.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": May 9th.

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.

Walking With My Eyes Open

This one of those entries in My Utmost For His Highest where I get somewhat lost in Chambers thought trail.  He starts out about being true to the vision God has given 24/7 and then, in mid-sentence/paragraph somewhere, switches to waiting for the vision.  The idea he is getting at he wraps up at the end, and I get what he was saying.  I suspect this is one of those entries heavily edited by his wife to fit within a page.

In any case, the idea is where he uses the phrase, "My utmost for God's highest," so I assume it's a pivotal entry.  The passage he works from is Acts 26, a speech by my buddy Paul to one of those rulers who hear him before he heads off to Rome to appear before Caesar.  It seems more for the rulers entertainment since neither of these guys can do anything to release him after he has appealed to Caesar.  In this speech he says that he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision (the one he received on the road to Damascus).  This statement is his transition from what happened to him to change him into what has gone on since.  It forms the segue into how he got there, capping off the reason why he would be there at all.

I do not have such an experience.  I was not knocked off my feet by a vision of Jesus in heaven asking me what I was doing, and why I was kicking goads.  He probably didn't want to explain what goads were, it would totally ruin the whole mood of the event.  No, there were no bright blinding lights, or voices for me.  For me, I felt two calls in two very similar settings.  Between them I discovered this book, the Bible had a lot more in it than I was taught in childhood.  It was an unsettling discovery, because I began asking questions that none of the older people around me would answer.  They seemed bothered by them.  The sequence goes something like this:

1. In Jr. High (Middle School), felt God calling me to preach while on a church youth group trip
2. Ignore call through High School
3. In the Army discover that the Bible has more in it than I first thought and am troubled by what I find
4. Ask those around me who taught me growing up, but they do not answer (I think they know but it troubles them too)
5. Receive the same call again while on a youth trip, this time as an adult counselor

At this point, I began to switch up my goals and direction in schooling.  It wasn't easy, and cost more than money (but it cost a lot of that too).  One of the colleges I attended had a strong religion program.  I sort of expected the same response to my questions, so, initially, I didn't ask.  But there, in my class, my teachers began asking these questions of us!  I laughed (it wasn't an appropriate time to laugh, but I was used to that).  I was validated and challenged to delve into this area of the Bible my former leaders would not go with me (don't get me wrong, it wasn't all that profitable a pursuit, it was fun and interesting - I have always been blessed to be led by amazing godly people who seemed to have better things to do than pursue biblical minutia for entertainment purposes).  I had two seemingly diametrically opposed skills while in school.  I was adept at using computers, and studying the Bible.

So, the vision I received was an odd picture or reflection in a pool where I kept touching the water and warping the view.  I believe that is partly what Chambers is talking about.  Wait for God to finish the vision before diving into the water.  Then, once you finally receive it, jump in, dive deep, and swim for the rest of your life here on earth.  So, I have been in and out of the water a lot (and it's always cold when I first get out).  I have returned to the pool again and again in hopes of seeing the vision complete.  I believe that my current situation is part of that pool-side vigil.  I wait for the next thing my Master gives me.  The house proceeds through the sales process, and we, look at options for renting locally until my daughter finishes school.  But beyond that we have no clear call to leave, and so, since we are here, we examine options to stay.  It's surreal, but I believe that is what my Master is calling me to do.  I wait for the vision, or the next part of it with an open available life.  I worship the great Master of all things which keeps me mindful of Who I am waiting on.  And I walk before Him because my day requires me to engage with this situation in which He has placed me.  So, today, I again walk, looking for the evidence of the next part of the vision.  I walk with eyes open, head up and looking about me, ears open (no headphones), and mind alert.  I wonder what my Master will show me today.