I am doing a quick post right before going out to garden. Tomorrow's s'posed to be 100 degrees! :( I swear, our garden can be a bane and a blessing all rolled into one- it's like having a very fractious, needy, fussy, roaring, but useful 9th child! :)
The past couple of days I've been reading out of "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. I love it! After reading Oswald Chambers's biography, I have a better understanding of that man. Each day I've read out of it, there has been some nugget that I take with me. Here are some of the quotes that stuck out:
(June 16th) "Has the Lord ever asked you, "Willl you lay down your life for My sake? It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways."
(Now I am back after 2 hours of gardening) Anyway, I think as Christians we assume that the only time we can really be "having a relationship" with the Lord, is when the lightbulb is really going off, and we are having a mountaintop experience. I think the Lord's most perfect work in us occurs when we are in the valley. I read on someone's blog one time the reflection that one of the names of Jesus is "The Lily of the Valley". Where does a lily of the valley grow? In the valley or course. There are some attributes of the Lord's character that we would not see unless we were willing to go down into the low places, and keep our spiritual eyes open at the same time. Really, I believe that the times of mundane plodding can be just as useful and glorious in the end, as the times when we see so very clearly all that we might be doing, and have done.
Then today's reading had a wonderfully freeing message in it:
"If you debate for even one second when God has spoken, it is all over for you. Never start to say, "Well, I wonder if He really did speak to me?" Be reckless immediately--- totally unrestrained and willing to risk everything---by casting your all upon Him. You do not know when His voice will come to you, but whenever the realization of God comes, even in the faintest way imaginable, be determined to recklessly abandon yourself, surrendering everything to Him. It is only through abandonment of yourself and your circumstances that you will recognize Him. You will only recognize His voice more clearly through recklessness---being willing to risk your all."
Isn't that lovely? Don't stop to consider what may happen when the Lord calls you. If the founding fathers had really stopped to consider the gravity of declaring war with England, would we have America? If Moses had stopped to consider the "impossibility" of getting millions of people across an ocean, would he ever have raised his staff and parted the Red Sea? If missionaries stopped to think of all the trials they may have to face on the mission field, would the Gospel ever be so widely spread? Be reckless in your abandonment to God- He'll take you on a glorious adventure! -Rachel
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