A Year With Oswald – Week 26

VERSE:  “I am made all things to all men, that I might
by all means save some.”
1 Corinthians 9:22

OSWALD:  “’I
have chosen you.’ Keep that note of greatness in your creed, It is not that you
have got God but that He has got you. Here, in this College, God is at work,
bending, breaking, moulding, doing just as He chooses. Why He is doing it, we
do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only – that he may be able to say,
This is My man, My woman. We have to be in God’s hand so that He can plant men
on the Rock as He has planted us….Never choose to be a worker, but when God has
put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or the left.” (October
25th)

In
the introduction to My Utmost, Biddy
Chambers notes that this weekly “Devotional Hour at the College” was “an hour
which for many of the students marked an epoch in their life with God.”

Though
we can all glean from these entries, Oswald consistently points to the higher
call of those who’ve dedicated their lives to full-time ministry. Not in a
sense that they are more valuable to the Kingdom of God, but to the fact that
they are more accountable. Called to a higher standard, they are to be an “example
for all the believers” (1 Tim 4:12).

A
monumental task which requires those of us who’ve answered that call to make
ourselves constantly available to the rebuke, discipline and the “bending,
breaking, moulding” of the Lord.

Today’s
entry reminds me of poem that describes the process God often uses to shape us
into instruments  “fit for the master’s
use” (2 Tim 2:21 KJV).

When God
wants to drill a man,