Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Oo, a shiny! What were you saying?

By the discipline of obedience I get to the place where Abraham was and I see Who God is. I never have a real God until I have come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ, then I know that "in all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee." The promises of God are of no value to us until by obedience we understand the nature of God. We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us, then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up. (Oswald Chambers)


Then all of a sudden we get ourselves into a tighter mess than we could have imagined, and we throw our hands out, and we give up. That's a little more accurate than "all of a sudden we see what God means." And that act of surrender leads to obedience, and obedience gives us fuller access to God.


Man! That was a long time coming. I am a slow, slow learner. Literally traipsing, holding on to Daddy's hand and tripping over my feet and looking around and bending down to pick up shinies.


But I'm getting it. It's beginning to make sense. And more and more quickly, my instinct is to give up. I'm learning that if we keep even one finger on that thing - whatever it is - that we don't want to surrender, Dad's not going to force it out of our hands. He is infinitely patient; He will wait till we release it. But we are stubborn and do not realize how much we hurt ourselves by holding on. I can only imagine the tears in His eyes, the self-restraint that wants to remove the thorns and heal the wounds but waits until we are ready. What a tender, powerful love!

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