Do you want God more than you want the things of this world?
Week 16 – Celebrating 100 Years of Oswald Chambers
SCRIPTURE: “For Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom.” 1 Kings 2:28
OSWALD: “You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.
…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.” (My Utmost for His Highest, April 19th)
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How It Spoke to Me…
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.
Several years ago, I had the privilege of speaking 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 read, “All I want is more of what I want.” An American motto if there ever was one.
Heal our want-ers, Lord, so that all we want is more of You!
Three ways to guard against a drifting soul…
- Learn to be content – want what you have
- Regularly refuse yourself – Mark Twain, everyday do something you don’t want to do
- Put down roots in God – Cultivate an appetite for God – begin to partake – intimacy not ritual
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. Click To TweetOnly Your arms around me and the solid rock of who You are underneath my feet.
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I’d love to hear from you…What are some of the “lesser things” of this world that have the potential to lure you?