MY THOUGHT: I’ve done it – I’ve actually done it! Fifty-two consecutive weeks. One year spent journaling through
My Utmost for His Highest, the
devotional reflections of my mentor and dear friend in the faith, Oswald
Chambers.
be honest, I wasn’t sure I would finish the task I committed to
last May. Discipline and follow-through are not my strong suits. Oh, I have lots
of ideas – lofty, fabulous, amazing ideas. But rarely do I actually see one
through to the end. To write the words “Week 52” is quite an
accomplishment for me. Happy dance. 🙂
From
the beginning, this blogging exercise was, first and foremost, about me and my walk with God. I wasn’t
sure anyone would read what I wrote, but I knew I needed to commit to something
bigger than myself. To make myself accountable to show up
weekly and reflect on what I felt God saying to me. It hasn’t been easy, and
if you look real close at the dates of the postings, you’ll see I’ve fudged a
bit now and then on my self-imposed deadlines (surprise, surprise!) But for a
girl who struggles to finish things, typing this last post is an accomplishment
indeed.
is God asking you to step out and do? What stretching, growing, get-out-of-your-comfort-zone
challenges are being placed in front of you? Oswald talks a lot about such
things in the last two weeks of April. What better way to end our year together than
to challenge you with what God used last year to challenge me?
15th – “Beware of the thing of which you say – ‘Oh, that does not matter much.’
The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean that it matters a very
great deal to God.”
16th – “Never allow a feeling which was stirred in you in the high
hour to evaporate…Act immediately, do something, if only because you would
rather not do it…We have to learn to live in the grey day according to what we
saw on the mount.”
18th – “Readiness for God means that we are ready to do the tiniest
little thing or the great big thing, it makes no difference.”
20th – “If we get less than God wants us to have, before long we
will slander Him as the servant slandered his master: ‘You expect more than You
give me power to do; You demand too much of me…’ When it is a question of God’s
Almighty Spirit, never say ‘I can’t.’ Never let the limitation of natural
ability come in.”
22nd – “A Christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the face
of God and then goes forth to talk to people.”
24th – “Whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship, He always
prefaced it with an ‘IF,’ never with an emphatic assertion – ‘You must.’
Discipleship carries an option with it.”
25th – “If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would
do nothing forever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain,
spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are
supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that
we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.”
27th – There is nothing easier than getting into a right
relationship with God except when it is not God Whom you want, but only what He
gives.”
APRIL
29th – “Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life; gracious
uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that
we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth.
This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an
expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we
are certain of God.”
of you for joining me on this journey. And to Oswald Chambers, who gives words and
substance to the cry of my heart. To know Jesus intimately and completely.
To lay down my life so completely, that I am finally lost in Him. Until, at last, I am His and
He is mine. Pursuing always, my utmost for Christ’s highest.
Becoming His,
Joanna