Giving My All

We should quit asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: February 21 Devotional

You read this and it hits you. Surrender requires a true self evaluation in the face of God. He does not need us and yet He wishes to. Stop trying to figure out how you can help God and just give yourself over to Him. I have been thinking a bit about this since I read this yesterday. You really got to be broken to think of yourself as no use to God, except that He chooses to use you by grace. That is a hard lesson to learn, I feel it hammering at me even as I type this. Only God can make use of the useless. I am thankful for that.

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Deuteronomy 6:5 (NASB)

That is a pretty simple instruction. If you follow this passage of Scripture, you should come to the place where you turn yourself over to God. Chase after Him to surrender to Him. Not run away to be able to live as you desire. This is a verse I reflected on in my journal over the past two years about a day apart in timing, but similar thoughts keep popping up when I reflect on this verse. I really need to run to Him and throw myself down in surrender.

Completely and daily.

More often as necessary.

Path to Leadership

Today I begin a leadership study that I will be doing with several others at work, utilizing Handbook To Leadership. It is a 52 week study of leadership values in Scripture, 5 days a week. The type of study that you can tailor to the time you have for study and reflection, but one that you would definitely prosper from spending more, rather than less time. It is a great leadership guide for those of you looking for something easy to work with. The study I am embarking on is just part of the book, it is rich in biblical resources that help you study leadership and the character of leaders that is grounded in Scripture.

Make your ear attentive to wisdom,Incline your heart to understanding;
For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding;
Proverbs 2:2-3 (NASB)

These are a few of the verses in today's reading, the first day of the study. The message is clear to me: leaders need to search continually. Search for wisdom and discernment. Leaders do not get to rest in this search, the job is never finished, the goal is never reached. But the journey can be so rich.

Those who look to you to lead will benefit greatly from your search, but it is you who will prosper the most, for you will have gained more wisdom and discernment if you seek the wisdom of the Lord. The Bible is a great manual on leadership if you just seek out the wisdom contained within, place their by God for our benefit and comfort. It does not matter whether you lead in business, government, or ministry. Leaders must lead, leaders must search, leaders must learn.

As you cannot rest in leadership, it is a good thing you can rest in Christ as your Lord. He will get you through your journey, take you where you need to go as a leader, if you let Him lead you.

Crisis of Faith

But before we choose to follow God’s will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens because we tend to be unresponsive to God’s gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide— for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: January 1 Devotional

God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
Henry Blackaby- Point Five of the Seven Realities of Experiencing God from Experiencing God

It is now 2010, and one thing should be apparent, I am reading Chambers again after a several month hiatus. I had started the devotional in 2008 part way through the year, so after completing it, I stopped and waited to pick it up again from the beginning. So here I am. I guess you could expect to see him in posts from time to time going forward.

Another thing that should be apparent is that both the quotes have a common theme; faith in God and acting in His will involves a crisis of some sort within you. We went through Experiencing God at my church this past fall, and spent some time on this concept of crisis. I had not made the connection between these two works until I read Chambers again this morning. I am not saying Blackaby borrowed from Chambers, I would like to think two godly men can be moved in very similar ways to write about the Lord in a similar fashion. It happens in the Bible all the time.

Not everyone will like the term crisis in characterizing how they must take the step and place faith in God to act as He wills. Sounds like we are weak, we are doubting, we are fearful. Probably all are true and that is why we do not like the term. In our hearts we often want to trust in self, not God, we want to be in control. That we face a crisis in facing the truth within ourselves is an uncomfortable thought that does not fit well with our view of self, and doesn't speak well of our view of God.

Knowing my own weakness, I look forward to a crisis within me in 2010, for then I will know without a doubt the fact that God is moving in my life.


Technorati Tags: God, Jesus, 121 Community Church, Henry Blackaby, Oswald Chambers, Experiencing God, My Utmost For His Highest, crisis, crisis of belief

Keeping Busy

As you might have been able to tell from the frequency of my blog posts lately, I have been busy and it has cut into my blogging time quite a bit. The old me (the pre-summer blogging hiatus me) would have obsessed on this, the new me says, it is what it is, and that is all it can ever be.

Having been retired for nearly two years now, it is a novelty to feel as if one's schedule is full, and still filling. Lots going on, but there is a definite peace to it. I attribute a good deal of it to my focus on listening and waiting on God. People and projects are not filling my schedule, He is. And I am OK with that, even more so, this is what I wanted.

The study we have been doing at 121 Community Church on Experiencing God has helped me really keep one thought in front of me.

Wait.

So I do, waiting for His direction and guidance. And waiting contains a control issue, as in giving up control of your life to God. I have never been much of one to wait on things. But that is what I am doing now, waiting and allowing Him to work His will.

It can feel incredibly fruitful and productive to wait on God, because waiting on Him means just that: waiting for God to move, waiting to follow where He is going, trying to keep up. What can be better than that? Chasing after God's heels because He is out in front with your captured heart in His hands. But waiting for Him to start that heart of yours racing.

So I wait, busily wait, doing what I think He wills, waiting for the next God sized program He will have me pursue with Him. And soon I get to do this with a two week break from classes and a wrap up of another semester at DTS. (Not sure the credit load I am taking qualifies as a semester. Semi-mester is closer to the truth).

Meanwhile, I am learning to enjoy being engaged and waiting at the same time.


Technorati Tags: Experiencing God, 121 Community Church, waiting, busy

Channeling My Steam

I seem to be having a problem lately keeping up with all I wish to do. It appears to be a problem of directing my energy, my steam in several directions, that are going off in different ways. I think as I get older I need more focus. The problem is that it is all stuff I am feeling called by God to do. Makes for steam on a cloudy day. Hmmm.

So I go back to the one word God spoke to me several weeks back as I was working through the Experiencing God study at my church. Wait. And as I think about it another word comes to mind. Control. I have to wait to let God control what I do. So I will. The waiting is to be quiet, listen for His direction, locate where He is in and around my life, and then to move to the center of that point. I will keep moving forward on the various things I am doing to see when God points me at one specifically. Then I will pursue it, because chasing after God is the only way to be close to Him. And if it is that I am to keep my steam moving in many directions. That's OK by me as well.

It's His stream to channel, my steam to move along as He sends it. Steam on a clear day, that's all I want, whever He chooses to send it.

Choices

We all have choices we need to make, decisions that must be made with less than perfect information with which to make them. Not a surprising circumstance, given the fallen state of the world around us and the desperate need the world has for the saving grace of Jesus. But even those of us who call Him their Savior have to deal with choices. Choices in this life; often choices that impact the next. And that part can be truly daunting if you stop and think about it for any length of time, with any depth of soul and mind. Forever lasts forever. Think about that for a few minutes.

At my church, we have been going through the study Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. There is one point that keeps ringing out for me. I need to stop, see what God is doing around me, what He is doing in my life. And then I need to join in His work. If necessary, I need to wait quietly for Him to enlighten me. That's the choice I need to make. Not about what I want to do, what I would like to do, but what He would have me do. Looking and listening. For the soft, sure voice. For the door opening (or another closing). His work. His will. His way. Not mine.


So choices are truly easy if you know where to place your faith. Do you have that assurance in your life? If you say it, do you act (and react) as if you really mean it?

The choices are clear to me. God's way is the only choice.

Technorati Tags: Choices, God, Henry Blackaby, 121 Community Church

Chosen

I have been working through the study Experiencing God my church is doing. I liked the lesson of yesterday, a message that I have been reflecting on for a bit:

The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
Jeremiah 31:3 (NASB)

I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love, And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws; And I bent down and fed them.
Hosea 11:4 (NASB)

There is incredible comfort knowing we are drawn to God, by the Father, that are relationship with Jesus Christ is a result of a nurturing Father bringing sinners to His loving Son. It took me until my late 40's to come to faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I am so thankful that the Father drew me in over the years, bending down to feed his child, hungry after years in the spiritual desert of unbelief. Drawing, ever drawing, He drew me in. Wow. I have been chosen, and that is good, for I could never choose for myself, nor earn what was given freely.

And as I thought about this, some lyrics from a song from a ways ago came to mind:

...Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been...
From Truckin' by The Grateful Dead

Not entirely true for me. There is the joy of knowing that His lights shines, and will always shine,
on me. And it blinds me, unless I am looking directly at the core of that light, seeking His face,
seeking it continually. What a wonderful trip it will be, for the strangeness is over and will in
time be forgotten as He wipes away every tear in His time.