I knew that by this He meant being disobedient. Wasting time, worrying, going in circles... even when my heart didn't want to disobey. I felt as though I was trapped in Romans 7:15.
Several months and lot of Oswald Chambers later, I had concluded that what was missing from my Christian life was obedience, pure and simple. "You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear," Chambers says.
I'm not silly enough to think I can change my ways in my own power, so I put this before the Lord. He gave me a brilliant idea about how to put day-to-day obedience into practice to complete the tasks He's given me to do. It's really been working. He also adjusted my attitude over the past several months. Finally, light at the end of the tunnel!
Yeah, well. Not exactly.
The other day I was plugging along, completing tasks. It was late in the day; things had gone pretty well. On a paper I'd been using to keep track of my work, I wrote completed next to the task I'd just finished. Then, in large letters, I added "(FWIW)" (for what it's worth).
Obedience is a central part of the Christian life. But even obedience from the heart is not the whole picture. Something was missing. I didn't mull this over; I just kept working. And feeling more and more defeated.
The task that evening took a long time. I had to photocopy about 200 pages of an author's rather obscure 1962 thesis, so that I could return it to the library the next day. I wasn't about to re-request it; it had taken Interlibrary Loan weeks to track down the first time.
I had already been photocopying this book for a day or two. To pass the time the previous night during photocopying, I listened to three sermons -- a series called "History" by Louie Giglio and Andy Stanley. Wonderful, God-glorifying, challenging stuff.
Fast forward to the night in question. After listening to Louie Giglio again for a while, I still had two hours of copying left, so I entered the search term "Louie Giglio" on YouTube to try to find something else.
"No -- Charles," I heard in my head. "An older sermon." I obediently found an older (2007) Charles Price sermon and listened to it. Amazingly, it was from a series I had never heard before. It was excellent. I decided to finish up my photocopying by listening to the next sermon in the series.
July 15, 2007 -- OK, here we go.
Ten or twenty minutes from the end of the sermon, photocopying almost done... Bam! The Lord threw down the "other shoe," the missing puzzle piece, with such precision and grace that by the time it landed, I was in tears. Tears of joy and also of shame.
How could I have missed it? I've heard Charles Price relate this principle dozens of times. I even thought I had begun to put it into practice. Or maybe a principle to put into practice is all it ever was to me?
Jesus stood before the five thousand, gave thanks, and broke the bread. He stood before Lazarus' tomb and gave thanks. He knelt in Gethsemane and gave thanks.
Giving thanks, acknowledging His total dependency on His Father. Acknowledging His own inadequacy (living as He did on earth completely within human limitations), and acknowledging His Father's perfect adequacy in any situation, however humanly impossible. Expressing utter trust in and dependence upon His Father in any and every circumstance. This is how Jesus lived. This is the Christian life. Surrender everything to God, trust, obey, and live in total dependence upon Him. Total dependence, expressed through the humble, simple gratitude of a child:
"This is too big for me, Father. But nothing is too big for You. Thank You."
No wonder I had become more and more defeated, thinking I could obey my way to experiencing the fullness of the Christian life.
But what about Oswald Chambers, who had helped put this notion into my head? Humble, simple gratitude is visible on every page of his devotional. He chose to stress the obedience component often, but his counsel everywhere exudes the restful, childlike gratitude that Jesus lived by.
And trust?
Well, stay tuned. That's another piece of the puzzle.