Day 2: Giving Up

Humility. That I would allow myself to be moved by God, stirred and transformed by His word. A soft clay that is able to be molded by the potter--not a clay that resists proudly declaring that it knows better than the maker. This is a song that I can't stop thinking about, playing over and over:  To God Alone (click the link to hear it).

The following is a quote from Oswald Chambers, I've underlined it three times in the book. Each time I read it I feel its truth and still that I try so hard to do things on my own, comprehend myself and make sense of the lives of others.

The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us thought the crooks and crannies of our own characters. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We do not know envy when we see it, or laziness, or pride. Jesus reveals to us all that this body has been harbouring before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look in with courage?

We have to get rid of the idea that we understand  ourselves, it is the last conceit to go. The only curse in spiritual life is conceit.

When God gets us alone by affliction, heartbreak, or temptation, by disappointment, sickness, or by a thwarted affection, by a broken friendship, or by  a new friendship--when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are dumbfounded, and cannot ask one question, then He begins to expound.

If you are going on with God, the only thing that is clear to you, and the only thing God intends to be clear, is the way He deals with your own soul.  Your brother's sorrows and perplexities are an absolute confusion to you. We imagine we understand where the other person is, until God gives us a dose of the plague of our own hearts.

Jesus can expound nothing until we get through all the noisy questions of the head and are alone with Him.

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (p. 12)

What else can be said today? This whole segment above is a soothing balm and sandpaper all in one, but I know it to be completely true. God uses things in ways we'd never agree too, never hope for, but they are always right. He purifies us though humiliation, embarrassment and it works. We want a magic pill for everything, God knows we need difficulty to morph into something beautiful.

Take time today to sit still and quiet the noise of questions and directions you give Christ when you speak to Him. Allow Him instead of you to take center stage and receive the glory for the broken pieces, the torn down walls and the decay that is waiting for transformation.

Previous Posts on Prayer and Fasting:

Day 1: Starting Out
Allowing Blank Space.
Consider Change
On fasting.

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