Faith. Nothing I have particularly figured out.

Sometimes I wish I knew who was reading this. Because, right now, I imagine sitting across from you, maybe at a coffee shop (right now I am at a booth at Starbucks) presenting you with My Utmost for His Highest, to March 15th, and saying, "Read this. And I will tell you a story."

But I am not actually where you are. Therefore I will merely recommend you find the March 15th passage of My Utmost and I will scrape out tidbits.*

This is how Chambers begins: "At the beginning we were sure we knew all about Jesus Christ, it was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is on in front and He looks strange: 'Jesus went before them and they were amazed.'"

Oh, man, God. You know just how I feel. Just what dismayed me. Today, it seems, I was wrestling with that exact, exact thing. "It was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out." I seem to look back longingly through a tinted window into the way I had operated, completely out of zeal and love for the Lord, being aware of the Gospel. I did feel like I had it all firgured out, and now---hardly. Sometimes I am not sure if it is worth it---or what it is, exactly.

Chambers continues, "At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me; I can no longer be familiar with Him. He is ahead of me and He never turns round; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off."

And just a minute ago I was reading Jason Gray's blog. Here is something he wrote:

“It’s an important idea to me, that – as G. K. Chesterton has said – our Christianity should look 'less like a theory and more like a love affair.' Sometimes I think we’re in danger of making our faith solely about intellectual assent to the facts of who Jesus was/is."

That is me. It is ironic how the more I try to fit God into a box (not necessarily learn more about him, but exactly to 'figure him out') I get frustrated. I do not understand. The more I try to rationalize things out, the more amazing it is. Now I do not believe it makes sense that God would, first, know me. After that, that he would love me. And then the strangest thing of all: that he would come down, become nothing, be despised by man, be hated, and suffer. (Isaiah 53, Hebrews 12:3) Jesus operated under human weakness. He preached the Beatitudes after pulling an all-nighter. (Luke 6:12) I take that for granted. So many ways I try to minimalize his love, when everything about Jesus shouts, "I love you in a way that is painful and foolish."

Chambers: "Jesus Christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him seem strange. When we see Him in this aspect we do not know Him, we do not recognize one feature of His life, and we do not know how to begin to follow Him. He is on in front, a Leader Who is very strange, and we have no comradeship with Him."

Gray: “I’ve wondered: We seem intent on protecting our hearts from God – knowing that to give him true, unlimited access to our hearts is to risk having our whole world turned upside down. Though Jesus is called 'The Prince Of Peace' we suspect that he is a disturber of the peace as well – at least of the false, half-hearted, varieties of peace we try to create for ourselves with relationships, job-security, money, etc. Instinctively we know that it’s a risky venture to get too tangled up with God…
“So do we intellectualize our faith in a subconscious attempt to keep God at a safer distance? It’s a thought worth reflecting on, I think…”

Keeping God at a distance. Do I realize how painful it is to see him suffer? I do. I do not think I realized it before, but it really is, because in my humanness it does not make sense. That is the danger, I have found. Faith is the answer to it: understand that is is beyond understanding. The closer I get to that kind of grace, the real kind of love that Christ displays on the cross---the more painful it is to my flesh, to my selfishness and desire to possess, to grasp everything, to make things manageable.

The other day I was at the library and happened upon A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God at their booksale. Twenty-five cents. Here is what he says in a chapter entitled "Apprehending God":

"Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there"

Chambers: "The discipline of dismay is essential in the life of discipleship. The danger is to get back to a little fire of our own and kindle enthusiasm at it (cf. Isaiah 1:10-11). When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come that following of Jesus which is an unspeakable joy."

That is what I do: I try to create a little fire of my own, because I am just impatient. Do I need to understand? No. I know what Christ has been in my life in the past, I have received abundant, abundant blessings that come, undeniably, from the Lord. I have seen God enter through the reasoning and conversation of my own mind. Sometimes he completely breaks it, blows my mind.
So I know those things. God, you have proved to be everything your Word says you are.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old receoved their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible...These all (men and women of faith) died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland..." (Hebrews 11)

I claim that. Hopefully this was helpful to you.

Hannah

*I will not tease you. Here is a link: http://www.myutmost.org/03/0315.html

Praise Him

Making it a habit to praise God, praise Christ, listen to the amazingness of the Gospel. When I try to find joy any other way, it fails. I will not. That sounds like a rather blunt statement. All I know is that is true in my own life. So very true.

But it is not just for my own selfish desires. I should not look to praise God so I will be happy; that is not the end of praise at all. "Pray," writes Oswald Chambers, "because you have a Father, not because it quietens you, and give Him time to answer." The same goes for praise. Praise His because He is God; praise Him because He has made you His child. Praise Him for the Cross! It is truly a wonderful thing.

I really feel like going on an Oswald Chambers tangent...so I will include a conglomeration of his quotes on prayer. Which also goes for praise.

"We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.
"Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret.
"Prayer is not only asking, it is an attitude of heart that produces an atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural, and Jesus says, "every one that asketh receiveth."

~~~

I have been reading David Crowder's book "Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi." Thus far I have only read up to, at most, the first two chapters.

"Every second is an opportunity for praise. There is a choosing to be made. A choosing at each moment. This is the Praise Habit."
- David Crowder

Praise Him