Skimming through Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest yesterday, searching for a quote I’d read somewhere that hadn’t been referenced by date, I realized I am at a place where I need to hear his challenge to live in simple fellowship with our Lord once again.
I would like this summer, amid the five hundred items on my to-do list, to learn to look to Him and trust him for each moment. Chambers says in his 5 August meditation:
“His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes. [. . .] A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God.”
May I rest and listen to Him to know how to spend my moments this summer, and not be fretful over that to-do list but leave it in His keeping and trust that His purposes will be accomplished.
5 comments:
I love Chambers too. May 1st spoke to me about walking by faith, not by sight (er, emotion). I pray that you can release all of that weighty performance anxiety this summer! Sounds like a wonderful possible reality to be in!
Teri
Thanks, Teri! I am so self-reliant, so poor at walking with Him, that it is hard even to contemplate. But I will never get where I wish to be, where He makes me long to be, if I never start the journey.
Have you read Charles Williams' _The Greater Trumps_? There is a character in that novel, Sybil, who is what I want to be. Perhaps that will be my first task, to re-read that book and think on it.
Blessings,
Beth
A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits.
I haven't dipped into Chambers in at least two years. Need to do that!
Thanks for the heads-up about your blog, m'dear. ;^)
Anne
Thanks for the novel reference. I'll look into reading it. Sounds wonderful!
Longing marks the beginning of the journey, n'est-ce pas? I'm happy that you're welcoming it with acknowledgment of your desire for a different type of Christ -reliance. That's all you need in your pockets for a while.
Very cool, with prayer,
Teri
Thanks for comments and prayers, all. My husband mentioned last night another (vital) addition to that to-do list for the summer and I actually didn't go into panic mode . . . one victory at a time, right?! :)
Warning about the book -- Williams' work can be a bit strange but you have to come to it knowing he was a believer. (He was one of the Inklings, by the way.) _The Greater Trumps_ uses the tarot as a motif/symbol for the dance of life. Just be aware that is what is going on -- it's *not* suggesting we should go use the tarot like fortune-tellers!
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