Learning obedience by small things & grace
SIDENOTE: "A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, 'If only I were somewhere else!' All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them."
(Oswald Chambers, "Submitting to God's Purpose," Utmost devotional 10/25)
(I say that--"If only I were somewhere else!" all. the. time. This reminder was well-timed.)
A few weeks ago, I posted the longest entry of my life (I think) waxing eloquent about how God wanted me to give up all my designs on the future and actually give Him my dreams. While that reality still exists, and I am technically a 27-year-old unmoored from a distinct sense of future direction, uncertain as to my future career or path, it matters little.
I was overcome by the uncomfortable sense this week that my level of angst was excessive and innately self-centered. The second I confessed this to God, He swooped in with a million little encouragements like the one above, gave me peace, and then helped me in my weakness.
This has been the great lesson of the past year-and-a-half: God is patient. Unlike a myriad of human teachers who have taught me differently about life from their acts, God is no taskmaster bent over me with a chalkboard on which He marks every grievance. Nor is he a redolent, mushy Being who sits and dawdles while I do whatever I want, encouraging my sin with a wink. He loves me too much for that, but He doesn't hate me, either.
How strange to write that: He doesn't hate me. Yet I had to get past this sense of God's utter distaste for my weakness to realize and accept His proper love. How long I have been held by the shackles of self-condemnation, or rather, by my pride. It places MY view of how I should be above the reality of me God knows already and died to change.
Changing things in my physical life has enabled me to see what things are more entrenched than others, and by which things I secretly define myself. I found it much harder to give up coffee than meat, and to give up shopping for a month than heat or air-conditioning in Las Vegas in October. Yet doing these things voluntarily, led by impressions of the Spirit rather than perceiving them as law, has enabled me to see a beautiful life in which I can breathe. God both enables me to do more than I thought I could, and works in my weakness and mistakes to redeem them when I speak to Him about it.
This has transformed the way I see sin and temptation, too. I used to strong-arm difficulties by turning from God in my spirit to try and defeat the foe on my own. A watershed moment this summer was realizing that I can go to Him as I am being tempted and tell Him, "God, I want this thing. I'm not supposed to, and if I were strong enough, I would just cut it out of my life now/stop wanting it/be able to get rid of it. But, Father, I can't. And unless You can help me/change my heart/give me the will, I am not going to be able to stop."
The important thing for me was to realize that I don't have to manufacture the will not to sin. It's not innate in me to turn from anything I could do wrong automatically and just live obediently all the time.
When I let God in, though, HE CHANGED MY HEART, and it was the most remarkable thing to see at work in my life. Within a day, I went from earnestly desiring something, to seeing it, and having no sense of connection or will to go forward with it.
Sometimes, obedience requires us to do the right thing without wanting to, and in the words of a mentor and friend, "That's okay. The obedience sometimes precedes the act. God didn't say to Cain, 'If you change your heart about it, won't your countenance be lifted up?' He said, 'If you DO well,' and 'If you DON'T do well, sin is crouching at the door...'" The key for me has been to abandon my foolish attempts to want to do well on my own, and instead, to turn to Him and ask for the will to do right, because in my heart sometimes all I see is the wrong. As I ask, the most remarkable thing has been happening: he has brought light into some of the darkest places, where I have struggled for so long that I never thought I'd see victory. Like a child trying to drain an ocean with a teacup, my God has come along and drained the ocean for me.
He doesn't stop there, though. He goes on to give peace and joy, redeeming moments that fatigued me before, and freeing up that mental space in which I lived and breathed curses against myself, my weakness, and my burdens. More than that: He makes them no longer mine.
(Oswald Chambers, "Submitting to God's Purpose," Utmost devotional 10/25)
(I say that--"If only I were somewhere else!" all. the. time. This reminder was well-timed.)
A few weeks ago, I posted the longest entry of my life (I think) waxing eloquent about how God wanted me to give up all my designs on the future and actually give Him my dreams. While that reality still exists, and I am technically a 27-year-old unmoored from a distinct sense of future direction, uncertain as to my future career or path, it matters little.
I was overcome by the uncomfortable sense this week that my level of angst was excessive and innately self-centered. The second I confessed this to God, He swooped in with a million little encouragements like the one above, gave me peace, and then helped me in my weakness.
This has been the great lesson of the past year-and-a-half: God is patient. Unlike a myriad of human teachers who have taught me differently about life from their acts, God is no taskmaster bent over me with a chalkboard on which He marks every grievance. Nor is he a redolent, mushy Being who sits and dawdles while I do whatever I want, encouraging my sin with a wink. He loves me too much for that, but He doesn't hate me, either.
How strange to write that: He doesn't hate me. Yet I had to get past this sense of God's utter distaste for my weakness to realize and accept His proper love. How long I have been held by the shackles of self-condemnation, or rather, by my pride. It places MY view of how I should be above the reality of me God knows already and died to change.
Changing things in my physical life has enabled me to see what things are more entrenched than others, and by which things I secretly define myself. I found it much harder to give up coffee than meat, and to give up shopping for a month than heat or air-conditioning in Las Vegas in October. Yet doing these things voluntarily, led by impressions of the Spirit rather than perceiving them as law, has enabled me to see a beautiful life in which I can breathe. God both enables me to do more than I thought I could, and works in my weakness and mistakes to redeem them when I speak to Him about it.
This has transformed the way I see sin and temptation, too. I used to strong-arm difficulties by turning from God in my spirit to try and defeat the foe on my own. A watershed moment this summer was realizing that I can go to Him as I am being tempted and tell Him, "God, I want this thing. I'm not supposed to, and if I were strong enough, I would just cut it out of my life now/stop wanting it/be able to get rid of it. But, Father, I can't. And unless You can help me/change my heart/give me the will, I am not going to be able to stop."
The important thing for me was to realize that I don't have to manufacture the will not to sin. It's not innate in me to turn from anything I could do wrong automatically and just live obediently all the time.
When I let God in, though, HE CHANGED MY HEART, and it was the most remarkable thing to see at work in my life. Within a day, I went from earnestly desiring something, to seeing it, and having no sense of connection or will to go forward with it.
Sometimes, obedience requires us to do the right thing without wanting to, and in the words of a mentor and friend, "That's okay. The obedience sometimes precedes the act. God didn't say to Cain, 'If you change your heart about it, won't your countenance be lifted up?' He said, 'If you DO well,' and 'If you DON'T do well, sin is crouching at the door...'" The key for me has been to abandon my foolish attempts to want to do well on my own, and instead, to turn to Him and ask for the will to do right, because in my heart sometimes all I see is the wrong. As I ask, the most remarkable thing has been happening: he has brought light into some of the darkest places, where I have struggled for so long that I never thought I'd see victory. Like a child trying to drain an ocean with a teacup, my God has come along and drained the ocean for me.
He doesn't stop there, though. He goes on to give peace and joy, redeeming moments that fatigued me before, and freeing up that mental space in which I lived and breathed curses against myself, my weakness, and my burdens. More than that: He makes them no longer mine.