SCRIPTURE: “I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 (Moffatt Trans)
OSWALD: None of us would be obscure spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our duty when God has shut up heaven? Some of us always want to be illuminated saints with golden haloes and the flush of inspiration… A gilt-edged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike God. We are here as men and women, not as half-fledged angels, to do the work of the world, and to do it with an infinitely greater power to stand the turmoil because we have been born from above. (May 1st)
MY THOUGHT: O Lord, it is so true. This daughter of Yours wants the constant mountain top. The glow of Your presence always around me, Your voice forever in my ear. I want Your anointing to be so visible upon me that, like Moses, my life requires a veil. I want my spiritual walk to be marked with the extraordinary and the miraculous so that the world stands up and takes notice that I belong to You.
And yet, I’ve found what one pastor said to be true in my life as well…” I’m firmly convinced that I was never of any use to God until I made peace with being ordinary.”
Ordinary. How that word cuts against our human desire to be significant and the “selfish ambition and vain conceit” Philippians 2:3 speaks of – the drivenness to be more than we are (and more importantly, to be more than what other people are!)
Can I serve you as faithfully in the shadows as I serve you on the stage? Can I give my life away when no one’s looking and no one sees? Am I willing to make washing dishes an act of worship and scrubbing toilets my sacrifice of praise?
Can I live by faith in the midst of the ordinariness of my life? On those days when You don’t speak – during those long, dry periods when I have no mountain tops to point to and no great moments on which to lean. Can I live my life without seeing You? Or necessarily “feeling” You? Can I live my life without needing to be significant in order to prove my value to You or to those around me?
Oh, how I want to. Because then, Lord, I believe I will finally have begun to learn what it means to live by faith.
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