Wednesday Wisdom from Chambers

Lately I have been trying to read from a devotion book in the morning.  It seems for a time, my iPad was always the first thing which caught my attention in the morning, with email and Facebook to check.  One could get caught up in it for hours if a little discipline wasn't applied!

Then I started to get the feeling God was feeling neglected, so have tried to remember to give Him first place to start the day.  The book I have been using is one called, "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers.

According to the forward in the book, Mr. Chambers was not famous during his lifetime.  He died at the age of forty-three in 1917, and was appreciated only among a small circle of Christians in Britain and the U.S. as "a teacher of rare insight and expression".  He had only published three books, and "My Utmost for His Highest" was not one of them.

It was his wife who, after his death, compiled his spoken words into thirty published books, many of which have become Christian classics.  "My Utmost for His Highest" is one of these, and the book I am using is a more modern "updated edition" edited by James Reimann, which puts the thoughts into a more understandable, modern day English.

Today's reading was entitled "Missionary Weapons", with a starting thought of "Worshiping in Everyday Occasions".  The first sentence really spoke to me:

"We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us--it simply reveals what we are made of already."

He goes on to expound further thoughts on the crises we face:

"Do you find yourself saying, "If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion"?  Yet you won't rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God's training ground.  If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit.  Crises always reveal a person's true character."

He goes on to talk about Jesus telling Nathanael, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." (John 1:48)  According to Mr. Chambers:

"If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready."

Wow!  That was a lot to swallow right away in the morning, and has given me something to ponder again this evening.  Perhaps it will speak to your heart, as well.


To give credit where credit is due, the copyright of this book is 1992 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd.
Original edition copyright is 1935 by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc.
Copyright renewed 1963 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association.