In the Lap of Serenity

I know that the answer to my problems isn’t found in school.  I’ve been to school, and still missed the more important point.  I know that the answer to my problems is not found in knowledge about God.  I know a lot about God, and none of it was enough to shift my mind into His way of thinking.  I knew a lot about Him, but did not know Him as I should.

And that is the problem that I was not trying to solve in school and with knowledge.  My problems stem from my problem with my relationship with my Master.  Simply put, I have only one real problem: I don’t know my Master as I should, and as I can know Him.  That’s it.  And I don’t find that answer in school nor in knowledge acquired in any way; experientially or referentially.  That answer comes, as Chambers puts it, as I “soak on the great fundamental truths of God’s redemption.”

As in much of life, the cliché winds up being true, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”  In this instance, it’s whether or not and how well I know my Master, that is all that matters.  Having said that, I now turn to a problem that has been flowing out of this limited relationship.

I have been compromising.  The pastor on Sunday warned against making compromises that lead away from or are contrary to my Master.  He made his appeal very clear.  I loved it!  But it also ran roughly over my toes and sensibilities.  How do I get along in this world without compromise?  Well, I’m not supposed to (he mentioned that too).  The little things I do that are what addiction speak refer to as “middle-circle boundaries” are not acceptable. 

It doesn’t matter what’s on camera or not.  It doesn’t matter what triggers my accountability software.  What matters is what my Master is thinking as I take Him with me wherever I go on the internet, entertain in the recesses of my mind, and where I look in crowds.  That sounds legalistic, but it’s not legalism, it’s about what is acceptable to my Master.  I am acceptable but my conduct is not always.  When it is acceptable to me and I know it would not be to Him, then that is indicative of a problem with my relationship with Him.  It goes back to that, not to knowing something more, but knowing Him more.

The truth I find difficult to accept about myself is that I compromise because it’s easier to do.  Relationships take work, whether earthly or heavenly.  It’s easier to just try and get along with everyone, just compromising to make the most people happy.  The hard part is to hold to one perspective, my Master’s.  It’s simpler, but it’s also more difficult to do.

I do know, and therefore have a choice.  It’s a matter of knowing my Master so well, the choice is lopsided toward Him.  One of the real dangers of knowledge is the responsibility that comes with it.  I hate that part because it means that I hurt more and grieve more.  But it also means I have a joy that transcends the knowledge of times.  But that joy is really pale compared with the joy that comes from my relationship with my Master.  I may not be bothered by the wisdom of this world, and as nice as that is, that serenity is paltry compared with the serenity gained in lap of my Master. 

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 19

Let the Craziness Begin…with Prayer!

Is it the eighteenth already?  My job takes a violently different turn today.  My tax customers have finished their last return for 2010 and now need my products to survive, many by the end of the month.  It will be bedlam for the rest of the month, but in a very good way; just busy.

In the hurriedness of my day, the crush of customers and processes, I will probably miss remaining attached to my Master.  The daily press of my circumstances will become a distraction.  It’s like wandering into deep water to wrestle with snakes and, in the commotion, not being able to hear my Wrestling Coach.  What I need is a tether so He can get my attention by tugging the rope.

The danger is that I begin to work in my own strength; those are muscles I don’t need to exercise.  I need to exercise my faith in my Master.  What I have done in the past was to try to involve Him in my day rather than consider myself involved in His.  I work for Him, not my manager, nor my customers.  It seems an odd way to view it, but both my manager and my customers are really more people He is interested in.

As Chambers points out, Jesus has revealed how I am to be devoted to Him, by loving others.  The Apostle John seemed consumed by this phrase of Jesus, and legend has it that he would repeat it whenever anyone asked for another word from Jesus’ life.  Even as he was old and carried about on a mat stretcher, he would say, “love one another.”  When asked why, he reputedly said, “because that sums up the words of Jesus,” or something to that effect.  It was as if that were the greatest commandment.  That was legend, but his first letter seems to be consumed by that theme.

So, the love I show to others is a reflection of the level of devotion I have to my Master?  Sort of.  If the love I have for others drains me, then no.  At that point the love I show to others is from my own paltry stocks instead of the limitless supply from my Master.  My access to that store is gained through time with Him.  What love I show to others is a reflection of whether or not that time ever took place, and to what degree.  Time with my Master has an affect on me.  How can it not?

That forms the tether I need to wander into the deep snake-infested water, and still be connected with my Master.  I just need to make sure I don’t untie it thinking I free myself up by doing so.  So, here I go; swim trunks and swim shirt, into the writhing waters.  At least I shouldn’t be bored.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 18

Even Greater Things of Prayer

At first I thought Chambers over emphasized prayer by calling it the "greater things" referred to in John 14:12. But as I continued reading, and as I remembered the examples from even recent church history, I admit, he may be right.

He mentions at the end the things that will be done when my orders are received from my Master, but those are not the "greater things", those are the things which Jesus did. Greater things result from the contact with my Master that is really life anyway. But I need to be disciplined to do it.

The pastor at my church yesterday spoke from Galatians 5 and covered the deeds of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. He was right on point with the lack of compromise in my Master, but present in so much of those claiming faith in Him; including me. Those compromises more often than not are what keep me from connection with my Master. If that connection is the "greater things" than my Master did in His earthly ministry, then my failure is even more huge. Not only am I giving up time with the Maker of stars and Tracer of quarks, but I am failing to accomplish His greater things in my life.

Had the "greater things" been more dramatic like healing, raising the dead, or feeding five thousand with rocks, then failing would be difficult to pin to me. If I look at it as prayer, all my excuses evaporate like the thin mist they are. What stands revealed is the compromise I have made that keeps me from my Master's presence; the greater things I am called to.

To the degree that this blog is prayer, and to a degree it is, this process I go through each morning helps keep me in my Master's presence. The problem is that I don't blog all day. This is the same problem I have always had with prayer. At some point I stopped praying, and life swept away the effects of the time I just spent with the Master of the universe. That wasn't always the case, but it was a very real problem for me.

What I need is the daily grind prayer life that permeates my whole day. I'm not even close to that yet. I see it, and have mentioned it several times. It needs to become my focus as I try to wrap my mind around that being the "greater things" I do because my Master is before the Father once again. Part of what I need to do is unlearn the scale of success put in place from my youth; the number of souls won to the Kingdom. I need to replace that scale with how saturated my life is with conversation with my Master. Maybe if I use a hammer, the paradigm shift might work easier. I'll start with a rubber mallet though.

Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest, October 17

Praying The Harvest In? Sort of

I know a few missionaries, and prayer is constantly what they ask for.  What they see in the lives of the people in their assigned countries are addressed by prayer.  But in the denomination I followed, missionaries are becoming scarce.  The money to send them is not as plentiful as it was.  The work is being scaled back.

Part of that is the economy is the continued  problems in the American economy.  Part of that is also a shift in priorities of people, and that one is caused by fear replacing faith.  But there may be other factors involved.  I am no longer with that denomination, so I don’t contribute as I once did.  However many times that happened with others leaving the denomination, there was a hole left each time.

But the answer is not money, as the missionaries I know don’t ask for money, they ask for prayer.  But they also pray.  I don’t know how often, how fervently, or when in any given day they pray, but I know that they know it’s an integral piece of what they do.  And that is not just true for missionaries, but for all believers.

I can do whatever work I want for my King, but until I do the work He wants, I’m not serving, not really.  It’s like when my daughter helps me do a job, but only the way she wants.  It sometimes makes my job harder.  I let her do it because I want her to want to help others.  But somewhere down the line, there is a lesson that she will need to learn that help is help when I do what’s needed, not what I want. 

As a servant to the King, this is especially important to me.  I have a responsibility to serve my King in what He directs.  I’m not unique in this, I’m just acknowledging that I recognize the responsibility.  I would like to be directed at dramatic things, big things for my Master.  But right now, it’s small things, like prayer.  What I see is that my Master, like Chambers says, wants me, not my work.

In Matthew 9:38, Jesus is just going on about His ministering, and seeing the crowds, He says to His disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers lack.  Therefore ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into His Harvest.”  The solution is prayer.  Perhaps the disciples would the be ones sent (i.e. Matthew 10), but the sending is preceded by prayer.  And the sending of the Twelve was temporary; break during the ministry they normally followed.  But for some it was not.  The Gegaderene Demoniac was sent to the Decapolis to tell of the things that God had done for him.  He was given that task instead of being allowed to follow Jesus around (Mark 5).

My sense of reality is a dangerous thing.  When my Master directs, calls, and sends me, I can’t evaluate it on the grounds of what makes sense to me.  I’m not here in North Nevada because of what makes sense to me.  I decided to obey, and then things began to be arranged on my behalf without my control.  But obedience was preceded by prayer.  I prayed for direction and direction came.  It came in stages, and I moved ahead only in those stages given that timing.  This is an example of doing it right; one among a throng of examples of doing it wrong.

Prayer is where my Master wants me to spend my effort.  Once in His hand, tuned to His voice, then the actions I take in this community will reflect His will.  Without prayer, it is my own wisdom and ability that I work with, and the results will definitely show it.  That’s not what I want, not really.  Although, my human self-centered soul would love to have my Master’s results come out of my effort.  It doesn’t work that way, and thankfully it doesn’t.  The results my Master brings about come out of His work and my obedience leads me to the background.

That may sound odd in our culture of seeking that 15 minutes of fame spoken of so much.  But I can’t save anyone from hell.  Why would I want attention from others?  The attention needs to be on my Master who does save people from hell.  If I distract anyone from Him, I will be removed by my Master.  The life of those distracted people around me depends on Him removing me, the distraction.

So, I point to my Master.  I direct praise I get toward Him, but I do so in a way that removes me from center stage and pulls me into the background setting where I belong.  I can’t just willy-nilly praise Him when I am praised, that only tries to intensify the attention I get with false humility (which is really obvious, and usually turns me off of personality-based ministries).  I have a responsibility to others to magnify my Master to my exclusion.

One important way I do that is to own publicly my weaknesses.  When I am clearly weak and imperfect, then any praise for what is accomplished through me has to go to my Master, there’s no other explanation.  This is one of the important reasons for the accountability I have through this blog.  I own my weaknesses here on the world-wide web so it will be blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer that I can do nothing and my Master does everything.

Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send out workers into His Harvest.  More workers are needed, so I must pray.  By the way, so the power of prayer is understood, my daughter is now doing dishes; right now.  She protested, but I just went on with the blog.  She got up, went into the kitchen and started doing them.  That was not me, I left it in my Masters hands.  Now, if He would just get her to put the dry ones away first (one step at a time, one step at a time).

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 16

Why Is God So Interested in Blood?

The entry for today is based out of 1 John 2:2, and it relies on a word which most people in this day do not understand.  Even reading the definition doesn’t bring home the significance of it.  The word is propitiation, and it is important because of that often overlooked part of the life with the Master of the universe, His wrath.

The Greek word is only used twice, and only in 1 John.  It is related to a word used for the “Mercy Seat” in the Hebrew Temple.  That relation is where the trail of blood is typically lost.  The Mercy Seat was where the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled to atone for the sins of the nation of Israel.  It took blood, and it had to be repeated every year. 

That practice of blood on the Mercy Seat was what Jesus overly fulfilled in His death on the cross.  In that event, the blood of a perfect sacrifice was used, God provided it, and it was not just for the nation of Israel, but for the whole world (actually for the entire created order, cosmos).  In other words, God, Creator of matter and energy, had to be appeased.  Appeasement implies a threat, and the great threat of the Universal Master is His wrath.  This is not a comfortable place for believers to hang out.

Unfortunately, not hanging out in that truth means it isn’t communicated to this world, and much of the world then falls into the wrath of God.  It’s like standing in the middle of the street hoping that if the speeding bus is ignored it won’t hit me.  Reality is quite different.  The good news is that the terror of the wrath of God is met and removed in the work of Jesus’ blood.  He Himself is the blood sacrifice that appeased the wrath on our failures to measure up, and not ours alone but also the whole created order.

This is one of those areas where I have had to wrestle with and offer up the ideas of what I want my god to be like, and accept in its place what the God of the Universe describes Himself to be.  Just because my Master has revealed Himself as the Son and the Spirit, does not take away the consistent truth that there is a Father.  But even in the descriptions of Jesus in Revelation is fairly terrifying.  He rides a white horse, and His robe is dipped in blood.  He leads an army into battle and the destruction of that war rearranges the entire created order.

I am a knight of the realm, servant to the King, and my King wields a mighty sword.  His wrath is impossible for His creatures to appease on their own, so He made the sacrifice Himself.  I serve a powerful King, a Destroyer King, but also a Creator King.  He has created the means to survive His coming destruction; but it is coming.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 15

One of My Weaknesses

“I am weak, but Thou art strong,” starts my life’s theme song.  Jesus keeps me from wrong not my own ability, knowledge, strength, or even my own will.  I am weak.  He is strong.  But can I, or will I, be satisfied as long as I walk close to Him?

Jesus called His disciples to Himself and told them to go.  But the first words were not “go”, but rather, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”  It was a statement of fact.  It is still true.  He has the authority over me, and anything I choose besides Him is rebellion.  It sounds crazy, but that includes myself, my family, my job, or anything else in my sphere of experience.

All authority has been given to Him, so nothing else is supposed to have authority in my life.  But stuff does.  I feel emotions, and as a guy, I have little or no idea what to do with them, or even what they are.  I have to consciously inventory my emotions before they become manageable.  How sad is that? (which is an emotion by the way)

But I have also found that there are elements to me that are not emotion, but something else.  I have physiological problems, and one of them includes depression.  I thought depression was emotional, but for me, it’s chemically driven.  Not driven by chemicals I take, but those loose in my brain.  An excessive amount of neurotransmissions clutters my mind, but also drives my emotional state down.  Those aren’t thoughts, at least not conscious ones.  I’m not sure what they are, but they aren’t good.  So, I take a medication for them.  I don’t think it’s able to keep up though.

Right now, I am in depression, emotionally, and probably physiologically.  I feel it, but can’t tie it to normal daily life.  There are things in my life out of my control:  I have a niece and her husband who are experiencing a severe trial of their faith.  My wife’s aunt is dying.  These things play at my mind, seeping into and through my thoughts, and I am sad.  For me, these things are dangers I must be aware of and deal with.  I can’t afford to ignore the signs.  I must weep, whether it’s manly or not.  I must grieve and that is a process not just one feeling.  I must feel these emotions or they will destroy me.  (that sounds dramatic doesn’t it?)

I don’t mean that I will die from them, I mean that all that my Master has done in my life lately will become undone.  I’d have to start over, which is not the same as being destroyed, so I was being overly dramatic.  I can start over, or rather, my Master begin again with me.  But this time in my life is no surprise to my Master, he engineered the setting I would experience it in.  He engineered the timing, the resources available to my family, and the new found devotion to Him.  I am living now more than I have in a long time.  And so, now I must feel as I have never felt, experiencing emotions to a degree I have avoided my entire life.

Experiencing emotions is not being ruled by them, but rather it is an immersive experience.  It is when I don’t experience them intentionally that I am ruled by them unintentionally; at least for me anyway.  But, since I haven’t a lot of practice at this, I fumble around with it.  I don’t know how to do it really, I just try to figure it out.  I have a busy morning, but a free afternoon.  And now I have an important task.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 14

Called Out of The Desert? No, Not Right Now.

This entry unsettles me.  After eleven years out from ministry, the prospect that my Master may lead me back into it is unsettling.  I spent ten years gaining education, I spent two years in ministry after school, and have spent eleven years out of ministry.  Honestly, I would not be thrilled to be called back.  Church people are a lot more fun from the congregational side than from the platform.  And besides, I felt the call to the platform, not the personal engagement that makes up the bulk of pastoring.

If I’m herding sheep right now in the desert, then I would prefer to keep herding them rather than shepherd a different sort of flock.  But even as I write that I feel how wrong it is. It’s not about me, what I want, or whether I enjoy or wouldn’t enjoy ministry again.  It’s about obedience.  Now, I don’t sense a call back to ministry, but I cannot call myself a servant of my King if I restrict where I will be obedient.

The truth I have to accept is that whatever my Master calls me to is what He intends for me to do.  So, I will hesitate, test, wait, listen, and confirm anything sounding remotely like vocational ministry.  Of course, that’s not a bad method to employ in ministry either.  In fact whether in ministry or out, my life (and therefore any ministry I do) still isn’t about me.

This entry in MUFHH is more about allowing my Master to grow me into the person He can use for His purposes.  It is less about what His purposes may or may not be, and even less about what I want.  I’m sure my wife is pleased I don’t sense a call to return to vocational ministry, but I also know she’d accept it if I were called.  The question now is about my heart.  Am I willing to accept it if I’m called?

I suppose, if it were clear and unmistakable, I would go.  I might go kicking and screaming, but I would go.  No, I wouldn’t.  I would go with the foreboding of impending suffering though.  It’s part of the package.  I can’t care about people and not have them trample me.  It doesn’t work that way.  Caring means being trampled, whether by family or friends, or a group of fellow believers.  I suppose that my Master brings me through the same path He laid out while He was walking this earth; a path of being hurt by the very people you serve.

To sum up, okay, if I’m called I’ll go and suffer, but I’m not called yet.  Instead, today I have a day-long training via teleconference.  Hmm. Maybe I am called, or perhaps what I do now is ministry.  It’s suffering for sure.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, October 13