I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever;
every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever!!
(Psalm 145:1-2)
Jesus, Beloved, this is for You:
I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever; every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever!! (Psalm 145:1-2)
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This is a revised version of a quick note I posted earlier today:
God's stubbornness is not like ours. We are stubborn because we haven't let go of our pride. The Lord is stubborn because He loves us. Which leads me to the part I left out when I posted this note earlier: The Lord is stubborn, but He is also profoundly kind. Today I was given an incredible gift. The Lord showed me that His "NO" is His way of saying "I have a much, much better way." Yet in His "NO," He often finds a way of saying "I love you." So, this is what I've learned: The Lord is stubborn -- very stubborn. But when He begins to get particularly stubborn with you, it means something remarkably special. It means He is poised to show you His perfect way, and no longer prepared to allow any interference. Why would He allow you to sit wallowing in the mud when He has heaven's ways to show you? He will allow you to sit wallowing there a while, when He sees you are still tied to the earth. Once you have begun to step with Him into heaven, He will refuse to let you wallow. Three years ago last night, my whole world changed. Life collapsing underneath me, I got on my knees in anger and despair and challenged the Lord to show me He would be there for me. My words were raw. I was pretty sarcastic.
The defiant challenge had barely left my lips when His answer came -- immediate, unequivocal, and concrete. By concrete I mean physical, because I am of the "Thomas" group of disciples. He knew that even though I believed in Him, I couldn't quite make the intellectual leap to 100%. He wanted me to be so certain of Him that I would abandon my life to Him unreservedly, forever. No more wussy stuff. My reaction (keep in mind that I became a born-again Christian in 1971) was as follows: "Y-o-u-'r-e... REAL. ...You're... actually... real." To my further astonishment, He kept reminding me of His presence, physically, for five months, until I had been safely weaned and placed in the steady care of His servant Charles Price. By the time these physical manifestations ceased, my heart and mind were so completely His, He no longer needed to hold my hand in this way. Now He could begin to disciple me properly, the way I should have been years ago when I first came to know Him. I've left out the details; even then, I've hesitated to tell this story in a public venue. But the details don't matter. The point of this story is that HE IS REAL. He is absolutely real, and He is unlike anything or anyone we could imagine. Every ounce of our surrender couldn't begin to repay Him what He's worth, but it's all He asks. He asks it because His way is perfect. And, because we fail to understand that His way is perfect, He is relentless. He lets us experience our own failings until they begin to eat us alive and we repent and fall into His arms. I love You, Jesus. Happy "other" anniversary. You are worth everything. (Getting into God's stride, conclusion)
The very best Driving Instructor the world has ever known is patient. So patient. And He has a sense of humor. He has to, to hang around with me. So, He decided to have me write that "learning to drive" illustration, then afterwards show me what it meant. What does it mean to get into God's stride? It means to let go of your own stride and surrender to His. Do you do this by spiritually bungee-jumping, saying, "Here I go, diving off a cliff -- He will catch me"? Well, not exactly. There are times when He will ask every true disciple to do some things resembling this. To walk in the dark and trust Him to be the only light. In a sense, this is what we must learn to do all the time, because only Jesus knows the way. He is the Way. An enormous amount of the Christian life is less like bungee-jumping and more like an endurance race. The Christian life is day after day of mostly very ordinary activities, with mostly very ordinary people. By this I don't mean they will all look and sound like us. I mean they will all have fragile hearts and deep needs, as we do. Some of them may be from a background we find perplexing or even frightening. Some of them may find us perplexing. If they find us frightening, there's something wrong, since we are here not to judge, but to let Christ get in close enough to draw them to His heart. What is stepping into the stride of God? It's stepping into worship and obedience of Christ, and it's stepping into His heart for people. It's letting Him lead us in intercessory prayer. No agenda, just follow Him there. It's letting Him lead us to people, so that He may lead people to Himself. To be real with people, so that they will see that we have a real God. Not a religious God, but a God who cares about the messy stuff. Learning to step into God's stride is learning to drive backwards. Lose yourself in Christ, lose yourself in His love for people. Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Again, from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest, October 12:
"Spiritual truth is learned by atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God’s Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before. Getting into the stride of God means nothing less than union with Himself. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don’t give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it, and before long you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose." I learned to drive a car at 31, later than most people. One day I was struggling to grasp how to turn while backing out of a driveway. This is an illogical process -- your brain is being asked to think backwards. I was having a terrible time getting it. My driving instructor was one of the very best the planet has ever known (all errors I've made since have come from neglecting something he taught me). He turned to me kindly and said, "You're thinking too hard. This isn't something you work out intellectually -- it's a reflex you learn, like learning to walk." This illustration comes to me as I re-read the above passage. I think there's a secret buried here. Getting into "God autopilot" reflex is a war against virtually everything we've learned up to that point. But that's OK. Our Driving Instructor is the very best the planet has ever known. A few days ago (the day after my spiritual anniversary), I found the weight of certain ongoing pressures and God's ongoing non-replies so intense that I asked Him, "Are You really there? Are You really here inside of me, or have I just been dreaming?" His reply was immediate: "Open Oswald."
I flipped open My Utmost for His Highest, randomly: October 12 and October 13. God's anything-but-random answer to everything I have been so desperately asking Him recently. From October 12: "It is a painful business to get through into the stride of God, it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride; but when we have got into it, the only characteristic that manifests itself is the life of God. The individual man is lost sight of in his personal union with God, and the stride and the power of God alone are manifested. ... ...Spiritual truth is learned by atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God’s Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before. Getting into the stride of God means nothing less than union with Himself. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don’t give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it, and before long you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose." When Oswald Chambers delivered these words in a lecture a century ago, God was thinking, "My daughter will need these words on November 1, 2013." He even had Mr. Chambers throw in "not by intellectual reasoning" to make sure I would know He was talking right to me. Because, oh yes, I've been trying to work this thing out as though it were a giant logic puzzle. What does God want from me? What if I changed this...? Or this...? From October 13: "We have to learn that our individual effort for God is an impertinence; our individuality is to be rendered incandescent by a personal relationship to God (see Matthew 3:17). We fix on the individual aspect of things; we have the vision – 'This is what God wants me to do;' but we have not got into God’s stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a big personal enlargement ahead." I have never heard Oswald Chambers be quite as encouraging as he is on these two pages, nor have I ever heard him explain so succinctly how the fullness of the Christian life begins. It begins when we stop fussing over what will happens to us. When we "obey and to leave all consequences with Him," as he has said elsewhere. Do whatever Jesus tells you to do, Mary directed the servants at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). This is where it starts (and always continues). Then begins the struggle, as you watch Him scurry up and down craggy mountains like a mountain goat, disappearing behind cliffs and calling to you, "Come run with Me!" You try; you fall; it's hopeless. And then one day you decide to run with Him and let the consequences be His if you fall. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “Draw me after you and let us run together!...” Song of Solomon 1:4a |
Every truth of
Scripture leads to Christ. Charles Price .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
About me "Hephzibah" (Isaiah 62) A yet unfinished story of the Lord's perfect restoration work I live in southwestern Ontario, Canada. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| |||
2 Chronicles 7:16 בָּחַר קָדַשׁ ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| [T]o our
wounds only God’s wounds can speak. from “Jesus of the Scars” by Edward Shillito (1872-1948) Blog archives
August 2022
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...The eyes of the
Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him. 2 Chronicles 16:9a (KJ21) |