thoughts from Amanda

Okay this post is about p.124 because that is where I am. It isn't much of a spoiler so no worries. However, it is rather long, partly because I retyped two passages as reference! Here goes:

I have shared here two passages (one being from Voskamp's book) that will set the background for my post.

A passage from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers – July 12

“Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose – that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.

Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ - “...that I may know Him...” (Philippians 3:10). To fulfill God's perfect design for me requires my total surrender – complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.

My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace,

Not even blessing, but Himself, my God.

Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?”

Read this and then jumped to One Thousand Gifts (p. 124) and found a connection:

“Straw comes in all shapes and the back of a camel can be weak and it's toast and surely there's something behind it that I should seek out but I don't even care. It's my own face that obscures the face of God. How can I help this son of mine see when I can't see? The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace? Christ incarnated in the parent is the only hope of incarnating Christ in the child – yet how do I admit that people made in the Image can make me blind to God, my own soul contorting, skewing all the faces? Why gouge out your own eyes when crusading for Beauty? Pain drives us to the mad acts.

I am mad. I'd like to will myself out of it but the blood is pounding loud in my ears and the sons slash at each other with the dagger eyes. Why? Can I just go back to the moon and the brazen glory? Wind and trees and sky wake me and I'm Peter on the mountaintop, stirring to see The Glory in all its God – radiance, stammering out that it's good to be here; let's build shelters and never depart (Luke 9:28-36). But there's always the descent from the mount. The meeting of the crowd, the complaining, the cursing. Obvious and immediate transfigurations exhilarate the faith, but the faithful can forget transfigurations, faces that once changed appearances. We betray Who we know. Didn't Peter?”

So I know this passage is chock full of ideas and different connections for each of us. For me it linked perfectly with the July 12 passage from My Utmost for His Highest and hit home with a long time struggle.

So by nature I am an introvert (at least that's my understanding of myself) and have always looked inward to try and figure myself out. Early in life I attempted to discover my passions and interests in order to choose a career. My earliest memory of career mindedness was 3^rd grade and I wanted to be a Marine Biologist. Then in 9^th grade it was a doctor who would find the cure for cancer. Junior year of college it was a Physical Therapist. Senior year it was, grudgingly, a teacher because that's what God said. Aside form this and up until recently I have had no definitive passions and always questioned what I like or don't like, what I should do or could do and what I want to do.

All of this is to say that I focus a lot on myself but I never saw it as selfishness because it was my journey with the Lord and figuring Him and, myself in relationship to Him, out. But Mr. Chambers provided an abrupt awaking which I'm not exactly sure how to move forward with. Mr. Chambers writes, “We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.” And I argue, “Why not?!” Who doesn't love those quiet moments in prayer or sitting alone taking in the great beauty of the Earth? Plus how am I to interact with anyone and spur them on in the faith if I don't have myself figured out? I think this is what Ann was thinking when she wrote, “Can I just go back to the moon and the brazen glory? Wind and trees and sky wake me and I'm Peter on the mountaintop, stirring to see The Glory in all its God – radiance, stammering out that it's good to be here; let's build shelters and never depart (Luke 9:28-36),” (Voskamp, p. 124). So how do we have our quiet time with the Lord but still work to edify the church body when we are mere sinners, helpless.

So it donned on me. We can't. We can't figure ourselves out in relation to God and we can't build up the body either. Not alone anyway. Only God can tell us and show us who we are in relation to Him. Only God can do His work of building the body and spreading the Gospel. We don't just think up our passions in life; they are gifts given to us and molded by God. I never wanted to be a teacher, it wasn't my idea to pursue this. But by trusting God and starting down a path with Him, he developed in me a passion for students and their well-being. God reveals our true selves to us. No matter how hard we peer into our own hearts and minds we will never fully know ourselves if we don't first know God.

To me this realization is freeing. I don't have to figure myself out and know where I'm going in life and have it all planned out. This is something God has been working on in me my whole life. He has been breaking through the ideas that one goes to high school does well and goes to college, all the while knowing exactly what to do in life. That's how I thought it worked. That's what everyone else seemed to be doing. But it's backwards thinking; it's putting the cart before the horse. We are the creation and the creation cannot know on it's own why it was created, only the Creator can reveal that.

So now that I know I don't have to figure myself out and I can stop stressing over whether I'm a good enough child of God and stop focusing on my own development, maybe now I can start really being of use to God. See the thing is we worry about ourselves and not necessarily in a bad way. We want to be our best for God. We want to get it right and perfect ourselves for Him. But simply we can't. Which is great because we'd screw it up anyway. So if we let go of ourselves and all our striving we can open up and allow God to use us for His Glory. We can then be used to edify the body of Christ and spread the Gospel to those who have yet to hear and understand it.

I don't know how the whole being used by God is going to look or how it works. But now I know not to worry so much and am one step closer to being used for His Glory. I have to get over myself. God takes care of us and works things out in each of us; He won't forget us. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't seek God or work on our character and strive to conquer our sins in the moment. What I'm saying is we don't have to spend hours looking inward because if we look up to God and into His word, He will show us our own hearts. We are incapable of understanding who we are because we are simply and beautifully the creation of a magnificent Creator.