June 14 Oswald Chambers devotional (classic version),
"Get a Move On: In the matter of determination"
One of the hardest things for me is getting a move on, but that's not what I'm struggling with here. It's some of the wording, which makes it sound as though I am able to make myself Christ-like. This can't be what he means. I'm asking the Lord to show me what he means. So, let's go -- I'll try to work this out as I go along. (Warning: this will take some time.)
"The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by the Atonement, then I have to construct with patience the way of thinking that is exactly in accordance with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus, I have to do it myself; I have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."
OK, Lord -- having a lot of trouble here. What do I do with "I have to construct with patience...," "I have to do it myself," and "I have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ"?
Keep reading, You say. Okey-dokey.
"Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances because I say it will hinder my communion with Him?"
No idea what that means. Let's start with "...because I say it will hinder my communion with Him." What is "it"? Even when I replace it with the antecedent ("God...doing things in my circumstances"), I don't get it. (Sheesh, for the first time ever, I'm thinking Oswald needed a copy editor.) Keep reading, You say?
"It does not matter what my circumstances are, I can be as sure of abiding in Jesus in them as in a prayer meeting. I have not to change and arrange my circumstances myself."
Ha! Beloved, I think I just started reading a different devotional. ;) Now he says "I have not to change and arrange my circumstances myself." Sigh... OK, I will keep reading.
"With Our Lord the inner abiding was unsullied; He was at home with God wherever His body was placed. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek towards His Father’s dispensations for Him. Think of the amazing leisure of Our Lord’s life!"
This is beautiful. I love getting a clearer picture of You in Your earthly walk.
Let's look at the connection -- You never chose Your own circumstances; You rested in the Father's dispensations for You.
(...Looking up "dispensation," because I don't know the meaning in this context... definition of "dispensation," from reverso.net)
Ah, there we go: Definition 6a, "the ordering of life and events by God." Gotcha.
So, this means You submitted, without any struggle, to whatever God brought into Your daily life. You didn't say, "But maybe I should be off doing X instead, because Y isn't important enough." Getting it. Starting to get it, anyway.
Back to Oswald Chambers:
"We keep God at excitement point, there is none of the serenity of the life hid with Christ in God about us."
...Occasionally I wish Chambers were still alive on earth and could clarify some of his points using 21st century examples. I think I know what "we keep God at excitement point" means, but I'm not positive. ...Ah, I see. We're always looking for the next high. Now that's a modern way of expressing it. Thanks.
(The Lord knows all our silly lingo, and then some. Every generation's idea of "modern" makes Him snicker. He's snickering at me right now -- affectionately, of course.)
So, we're always looking for obedience to be about "important" things. But there are important things -- daily time with Him, helping people, Bible study, meeting with other Christians for worship... Should we not prioritize? Help me with this one, Lord.
Go back to what Oswald Chambers said. ...OK. "There is none of the serenity of the life hid with Christ in God about us." Nope, I'm still not getting it. I'm also still wrestling a lot with that whole "I have to do it myself" thing.
That's not what it means. ...What do You mean, "That's not what it means"? Please use examples. I'm clueless sometimes, as You know.
"I have to do it myself" = "I have to choose to obey." God won't make me obey.
Never mind those examples. I understand exactly what that means. If I were to post my own examples of "not choosing to obey," it would be embarrassing. There are thousands and thousands of tiny "not choosing to obeys" in every day of my existence.
...OK, I'll post one, if You say so. There's a forum I like to visit. It's not a spiritual forum, it's a forum related to a hobby of mine. On this forum there are many, many women around my age. So when life issues come up, I visit this forum and post a question, or read to see if other people have posted about it. Ha -- not just "when life issues come up." I visit this forum pretty much every day. I read about people's struggles and joys, and I post some of my own. It's a sort of community. I visit that community sometimes when I'm simply needing companionship. Not that there's anything wrong with companionship, but in real life I wouldn't leave a task I had been given to do to run out and have coffee with friends. Well, maybe friends at work would have a coffee break or lunch together, but there are built-in schedules for such things.
If I worked in an office and kept choosing to run off at random times with my co-workers to have coffee, You wouldn't stop me. Eventually my human boss would stop me, by firing me (maybe she or he would fire all of us). You would let me suffer the consequences of my foolishness. You would even teach me through this suffering. I know this, because it was my own folly that led to the suffering that You used to finally break my heart and will before You.
"There is none of the serenity of the life hid with Christ in God about us."
There is none of the "obeying without giving it a second thought, without resisting Your will" that Christ had.
Let's try this out. Let's pretend the earthly Jesus had a mundane task to do. Let's pretend it was really mundane, nothing apparently "spiritual" about it. Maybe He was re-cataloguing the carpentry invoices, because the filing system they had been using was not working efficiently. He and Joseph had discussed this, and He had said He would work on it that morning. His friends stopped by and said, "Our friend Aaron is feeling really down. You should go see him this morning. We tried to help, but we got nowhere." What would He do? Don't people always come first?
"I will go to see Aaron. Please tell him I'll be there at 4:00, when I've finished this work. Ask him not to be discouraged -- he's on My mind, and we'll talk."
(Not sure where that came from -- it came to my mind as I was thinking this over.)
Yes, Jesus did sometimes leave what He was doing to help a person in need. But He was following the Father's lead. He did only those things He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He wasn't legalistic about doing a particular thing, but He was utterly faithful. The Father's will was His word, and He always kept His word.
Back to Oswald, to see if any of this is making sense yet:
"Think of the things that take you out of abiding in Christ – Yes, Lord, just a minute, I have got this to do; Yes, I will abide when once this is finished; when this week is over, it will be all right, I will abide then. Get a move on; begin to abide now. In the initial stages it is a continual effort until it becomes so much the law of life that you abide in Him unconsciously. Determine to abide in Jesus wherever you are placed."
I'm now reading "abide" as "obey." Mr. Chambers, do you mind if I insert "obey" for "abide" in this passage? I think it may help me understand.
"Think of the things that take you out of obeying Christ – Yes, Lord, just a minute, I have got this to do; Yes, I will obey when once this is finished; when this week is over, it will be all right, I will obey then. Get a move on; begin to obey now. In the initial stages it is a continual effort until it becomes so much the law of life that you obey Him unconsciously. Determine to obey Jesus wherever you are placed."
This does help. It's not real to me in the practical sense yet, but it helps me picture what it means. Continual, tiny acts of unceremonious obedience, something like that. Not that there won't also be larger acts of obedience, but the training begins here. The training to become at ease in whatever situation God places us in. "Mindfulness," in every sense of the word.
This morning when I was struggling with the June 14th devotional, I peeked ahead to tomorrow's devotional, which is a continuation of the same theme. Here it is:
"Get a Move On (2): In the matter of drudgery"
..."Drudgery is the touchstone of character." Now there's a quotation. I am pinning it to my wall.
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6/15 note: It turns out there are two versions of the My Utmost devotionals on the utmost.org site. One uses Chambers' original wording, and is found at http://utmost.org/classic/. The other uses slightly modernized wording, and is found at http://utmost.org/. For some reason, the versions were waffling around a bit yesterday, including the title ("Get Moving" vs. "Get a Move On"). So, any editorial waffling you noticed here with that wording was because I was trying to be consistent with the website. I finally just revised the link to the classic version for both, because it takes you to a specific devotional, not to the main page, which changes day by day.