so i've been awake since 3 o'clock this morning. again. blegh.
instead of ranting this time, i've spent the past 4 hours praying and thinking. i watched the sun rise - ok, so i watched the day brighten through the clouds - and listened to the birds singing. why they are singing on such a cold, dreary morning is totally beyond me - they must know something that i don't. or have much less on their minds...
a friend of mine sent me an email yesterday with a quote in it that i can't get out of my head. it's by oswald chambers, admittedly NOT one of my favorite authors or theologians. everything that i've read by him - intentionally not much - just does not sit well with me. his descriptions of what our relationship with God is supposed to look like remind me of an ant trying to have true fellowship with shaquille o'neal. it's just... unbalanced and in no way intimate. but that's not the point of this post... here is the quote i can't get out of my head:
The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.
how can that be true? i have been struggling with this since i first read it, and i become increasingly more perplexed the more i ponder it. as someone seeking God's call on my life, this quote sends me into a bit of a panic. pushing back on the panic, i'm inclined to think about what God's Word has to say about this. (i'm too lazy to look up the scripture references...)
God made me. He knew me before the beginning of time. He knit me together in my mother's womb. He knows every hair on my head. He placed His desires in my heart. i am an image-bearer of the Most High God. i am crowned with glory, made righteous by the blood of the Lamb. i am holy and dearly loved. i am forgiven, restored and belong to God's family - a holy nation and a royal priesthood. i am salt and light. i am the bride of Christ. i am much more than this, but that's all i have off the top of my head, considering i've been up since 3 am...
knowing all of this to be true... how can chambers be correct in saying that who i am is irrelevant to who God calls me to be?
I DON'T GET IT.
6 comments:
Interesting. I don't get it either. He is our source and provision for our needs. When we seek after Him, He grants the desires of our hearts. We are uniquely made. We are endowed with particular and unique gifts to serve the body. He blesses us--it wouldn't be a blessing unless it was tailored specifically to what we needed/wanted. We are equipped for His good purposes.
Now granted, the Lord sees beyond our limited understanding of ourselves and can call us to greater things than our poor flesh would be capable of--without Him of course. The Lord deals with us at times very gently and with great care and sometimes more strongly as our personal desires and temperament require, but how to reach through us in a unique and personal way is at the forefront. The way He reaches out to you is totally based on who you are and is totally different from how He reaches out to me. Consider what you saw of how He works in other countries and the differences there. I think his point is more of the being selfish and dwelling on ourselves that we forget to listen to the Lord and the noise of everything else drowns Him out, and how much we turn and listen for Him helps with how well we actually hear Him. Not entirely true though...how often does He interrupt us to grab our attention when we may not have been looking for Him in the first place. How often do we press in and seek Him only to not hear anything for so long. In His silence He teaches much as well, but then since He is teaching, He is still working in our lives. Your thoughts?
i'm clean out of thoughts right now... i'll get back to you when my brain is functioning again. about to go to sleep...
just to show you how writing really is art, and art is interpreted and evaluated differently... i think ozzy is right on. from my reading of that quote, he is saying that hearing the voice of God only happens when we are not in the picture at all. any trace of self tends to take over our hearing. further evidence that when we do hear from God it confirms that we really are new creations.
not picking a fight at all. i can totally see where you are coming from, and i would disagree just as strongly. i just think it's cool how we all read things so differently. makes you wonder...
i didn't take your comment as picking a fight - your input is valuable and welcome here.
my brain is still not functioning (too much caffeine, too little sleep), but i think i was focusing in more on His calling on my life, and the fact that He created me to fulfill that calling, rather than hearing His voice at all.
it doesn't make sense to me that He would create me for the primary purpose of relationship, and secondly to advance the Kingdom if He, as chambers intimates, requires total removal of the self He created in order for me to figure out my role in all of this...
we are image-bearers. He's not trying to confuse us. He's not playing hide and seek. He's called us to intimacy and a specific role in advancing the Kingdom of God. He fashioned us and made us to uniquely fill that role...
fascinating stuff. i love to hear other perspectives, so i thank you for your willingness to share yours... you are welcome here anytime.
May I suggest that what Oswald is saying is that if we can focus on who we are, the person you have described in your second to last paragraph, and not focus on who we think we are or want to be seen as, then we are focusing on the true person that God sees and is calling us to be.
It's doing what we can not do on our own, it's too big. It's responding in a way that is outside our initial impulse - - until our initial impulse is actually the divine impulse and the divine is so much the core of who we are we, our perceived self, ceases to exist, and our true self - - as seen by God is the only self that exists.
In his Unspoken Sermons, Vol. 3 in the sermon on Justice, George MacDonald makes the following statement:
"The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from the consequences of our sins, is a false, mean, low notion. The salvation of Christ is salvation from the smallest tendency or leaning to sin. It is a deliverance into the pure air of God's ways of thinking and feeling. It is a salvation that makes the heart pure, with the will and choice of the heart to be pure. To such a heart, sin is disgusting. It sees a thing as it is,--that is, as God sees it, for God sees everything as it is."
A word that many of us are uncomfortable to assume is 'holiness', but isn't that what God offers us through Christ if we allow it's work to be complete in us?
mike, your perspective helps... but creates a new question in my mind. who is chambers' audience? i've been assuming this whole time that he is targeting christians, but it almost makes more sense if he is writing to non-christians. i say this because of his use of the phrase "But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself..." IF he is writing to christians, it seems as though he does not believe in the sufficiency of the work of the cross... is he referring to the call on our lives to be restored to the Father, or, as i initially read it, is he referring to the specific calling on our lives - the specific work He created us to do for the the Kingdom?
i'm with you - i believe we are called to holiness, in increasing measure as we grow and change and become more like Christ - as we allow Christ to complete His work in us. we are holy ALREADY, according to His Word... HE could not dwell within us if we were not washed with the Blood of the Lamb...
your perspective is beautiful. i don't know if what you've written here is what chambers was going for or not, but i love your grasp of His heart for relationship. good stuff - thanks!
joshua, you are so right to say that writing is art and open to interpretation. i really appreciate the wisdom and insight both of you have given here... please know that you are welcome here anytime!
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