SCRIPTURE: “For Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom.” 1 Kings 2:28
OSWALD: “ …You have remained true to God under great and intense trials, now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be morbidly introspective, looking forward with dread, but keep alert; keep your memory bright before God. Unguarded strength is double weakness because that is where the “retired sphere of the leasts” saps. The Bible characters fell on their strong points, never on their weak ones. ‘Kept by the power of God’ – that is the only safety.” (April 19th)
MY THOUGHT: Oh Lord, I want to be faithful to You always. I don’t want to live my entire life only to have my faith shipwrecked in the end. And yet, I feel the undercurrent, the pull to lesser things…pleasure, food, outward adornment, the accruement of stuff. So much stuff. All bait that leads to complacency; the slow death of a once passionate heart.
I loved my time in Singapore. It is an incredibly beautiful country filled with amazing people from such diverse cultures But I’ve never seen so many malls, so many glittery treasures and trinkets to distract and delight. Shopping is literally the national pastime – a woman’s Shangri-la. So much incredible bounty, so much amazing food! One store offered a t-shirt for sale that said, “All I want is more of what I want.” An American motto if there ever was one.
Lord, I want to want You more than I want the things of this world, as lovely as they are. I don’t want to be lured into the “retired sphere of the leasts.” When asked what he feared most, Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black, said something to this effect…“My deepest fear is that after treading great heights with God, I would somehow drown in shallow water.”
Drowning in shallow water. Those words and that image has stayed in my heart for weeks. Lord, may I not be lulled to sleep by comfort or complacency, consumerism or compromise.
May I launch out into deep water in You, Lord – the only safe place to live. For then my feet will find nothing of this earth on which to stand. Nothing of this world on which to rely.
Only Your arms around me and the solid rock of who You are underneath my feet.