Today I am changing the song lyrics “Givin him somethin he can fe-eel” to “Givin HIM something I can feel”.
I tend to offer him control over only the particular areas of my life which I can hand over without feeling any pain from the removal. We often give to the degree that we
are still comfortable, feeling no pain :)
I recently sleighed a thing in my life and left it at his feet. The excruciating experience of loss felt like extirpating a nerve. However,
he rushes in (every time) and reconstructs that sore, wounded place. He gives me new eyes and brings me to my knees upon reflection. “How could I have
been so blindly controlled by that thing!?”
When I cry out “Lord SPEAK! I need to hear from you now!” I give ‘em somethin I can feel. Bam, he shows up. My heart would melt every time that my children
proved that they loved me that much.
Oh to “recklessly abandon”…
The expulsive power of the right and TRUE affection!
Read the Osy from this morning…
Osy was so awesome today.
The key to completely “recklessly” abandoning to him is sleighing the things/idols that hinder our walk. Satan would have us thinking “Oh I am being too extreme. This does not REALLY need to be cut out…” Oh no. By hanging on, we are simply prolonging the deep peace and joy that the Lord will pour out into our lives once we hear that call and jump. Why do I trust him to catch me once I do? Because he has orchestrated the entire thing for my good. He knows, somehow, that I will be better, stronger, and more closely bound to him for having battled and vanquished the thing.
“God is not a passive observer in our lives while sinners and Satan beat us up. He rules over sinners and Satan, and they unwittingly, and with no less fault or guilt, fulfill his wise and loving purposes of discipline in our lives. God is not coming to his children late after the attack, and saying, “I can make this turn for good.” That is not discipline. That is repair. It’s the difference between the surgeon who plans the incision for our good, and the emergency room doctor who sews us up after a freak accident. This text says, God is the doctor planning our surgery, not the doctor repairing our lacerations.” – John Piper
Love is action, love is discipline. We must constantly lay down our lives. Bob Flayhart from Oak Mountain says that the spiritual life is like a 3 step waltz. Repent, believe, fight… repent, believe, fight… over and over again, trusting him all the while. Abandoning our control to him every morning (every hour).
To believe that once we repent then believe, there will be no fight… there will be no laying down our idols… is like saying I want to plant a beautiful garden on Saturday and then never enjoy getting my hands dirty… the battle is exciting. Spiritual warfare is so real. My friend was telling me of his dog named Skeeter who chases chipmunks daily with the same intensity no matter how many times he fails to catch one. Lucky for the little guys, they have “a myriad of holes” into which they can scamper when this dangerous beast of a merciless “Skeeter” threatens their lives again and again :) ‘Ole Skeeter would loose interest if he came out of the door every single morning to find a bunch of little chipmunk paperweights just lying still :)
I was thinking of how Skeeter may not catch them but has most probably learned some things through trial and error which allow him to get closer and closer to the goal: A nice yummy chipmunk dinner.
So often I find myself thinking…
“Here I am again Lord, stuck in this cyclical thing revisiting the same struggles. I know what I did wrong this time, I will do better next time, yada yada yada…” As Tim K says… “shut up spiritually! just shut up!”
He has orchestrated a perfect plan to discipline and sharpen. That plan is not some cyclical process but an upward spiral.
I grew up absolutely horse CUUURAZZZYY. I used to jump. In eventing (jumping an outside course with rougher terrain) or show jumping, the judges score the horse and rider on the basis of the grace and fluidity with which they complete the course, and whether or not they complete the course all the way through without missing a hurdle/jump. If a horse balks (stops short and scoots around it) at a jump, the rider can’t continue the course until he conquers that jump. He has to turn back around, as embarrassing as it is, and go over that jump. I always loved the challenge of that though. What an analogy. That horse is brought back to the very place where it was weak, time and time again until he understands how he can conquer it. He continues to bring me back to places where I am weak until I sleigh the idol and leave it there, at his feet. Interesting analogy huh? Simple yet oh so profound. When we fail, he does not leave us there. He will persist through discipline (out of love) until we acknowledge him and learn. I love that he calls us to fight.
“Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by this heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils.” -William Gurnall
Today’s Oswald reminded me of a few things…
Romans 1:16-17 - Do I secretly believe that everything is up to me? I need to on his power and grace all day long. In this passage, Paul is not saying that the gospel produces power but that it IS the power of God coming to us in verbal form. We get access to that power. The same power that raised Christ from the dead to rescue the souls of mankind. We can draw on that.
It’s interesting to me that so often I think that once I am filled up, I should remain that way the next day. To wake up, filled with the same fullness with which I went to bed.
We are vessels which need to be poured out and refilled constantly. It is a beautiful thing that he wants us to need him. Created us to need an intimite relationship with him. We can be intimately bound to the heart of God (as He intended) when we go to him, drawing on that grace, constantly. I wake up in the morning, refill immediately, arming myself with that power once again. Only then can I walk through my day extending that same grace to the people in my lives. Only then can I handle suffering, hard conversations, failures, etc and know that none of that is connected to my identity. It rests in him and his wondrous grace.
“Drawing on that power” is also marveling at the miraculous nature of our salvation. Tim Keller once said
“One of the signs that you may not grasp the unique, radical nature of the gospel is that you are certain that you do.“ I love that, as it reminds me that it is amazing that I am a Christian! It is amazing that I am his child! How dare I judge others when it is a sheer miracle that God wove this crazy plan and saved my sinful soul!
As I have grace amnesia quite often, let’s remind each other! He loves that, don’t ya know?
God is not a passive observer in our lives while sinners and Satan beat us up. He rules over sinners and Satan, and they unwittingly, and with no less fault or guilt, fulfil his wise and loving purposes of discipline in our lives. God is not coming to his children late after the attack, and saying, “I can make this turn for good.” That is not discipline. That is repair. It’s the difference between the surgeon who plans the incision for our good, and the emergency room doctor who sews us up after a freak accident. This text says, God is the doctor planning our surgery, not the doctor repairing our lacerations.
— John Piper
“Our Lord’s first obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father.” Oswald Chambers
I so often step back from identification with God’s interests in other people into my own personal sympathies with them. I’m always ready with my own ideas that will meet needs, please, impress, etc. Once we make that deliberate substitution of my natural sympathies with others for his interest in others, we are able to love and serve them with no thought of receiving (SO unnatural for my sinful self). That is true love. The greatest act of love is giving oneself for others. Real love is an action, not a feeling. It produces selfless sacrificial giving. What is laying down our lives mean? It is simply serving others with no thought of receiving anything in return. Then, we can see inconsistencies in our own hearts… where we are failing and God is succeeding becomes visible. Our hearts become free, humbled, and at rest in his presence. Self sacrifice - sharing in Christ’s experience- the only way to experience a heart at rest in the presence of our Father. Yet another example of what I wrote about yesterday. He will take any area of our lives that we abandon to him and make that thing beautiful. Have an inclination - jump - inclination becomes revelation - Holy spirit rocks our faces.
We abandon and he speaks.
Handing over every relationship to him is difficult but he will bless it. I’m learning to listen better. Walking into conversations, I have to constantly remind myself to quiet down, become a listener, and hand that conversation over to him. My natural tendency is to have a party with my conversations. My conversations do not belong to me. We are caretakers not owners.
To lay down ones life… wow. He lives for me. Isn’t it amazing that sometimes saying “I will die for you” is easier that saying “I will live for you”? To lay down your life is so hard b/c it means relinquishing all control to our Father. Once we jump, He meets us.
Awesome.
