Oswald and life lessons

A couple of weeks ago, Oswald Chambers (author of My Utmost for His Highest) suggested that I look back to what I was doing and learning this time last year, so that I could compare and see how far the Lord has brought me.  I have been a journaler for quite some time now, so I dug back two journals ago to see what I prayed during the last week of March.

Lo and behold, the only entry from that week: brief sermon notes from Dana Bruxvoort's sermon on Romans 8, followed by a lengthy prayer begging for the Lord to wake me up.  In looking back and rereading my words, I can see clearly the deadness I felt in my heart and haziness I felt in my soul for so long... I longed to love as the Lord instructs us to love, to wake up and LIVE how the Lord desires us to live.  The wisdom Dana shared was an important step among many in my journey to really come awake-- which, incidentally, was the inspiration for the name of this blog. 

I was glad Oswald suggested I look back, because it made the week into a very good one.  Like an Indian summer-- a week of warm in the midst of cold.  A week of joy and right-ness in the midst of many weeks of pain and confusion.


After I re-read the notes on Dana's sermon, I wrote the following entry into my current journal.  It is in the voice of the Lord, speaking His truth to me.  It is nothing super-revelatory.  It is pretty much regurgitated verses-- verses that have shaped me in the last year:

"He who loses his life for my sake will find it.  But look!  I am doing a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?  It is rising up with the dawn.  The first shall be last and the last shall be first.  Seek first my kingdom and all of these things will be given to you as well.  No eye has seen and no ear has heard how absolutely good are the things that I am preparing for those who love me.  I am the Good Shepherd.  My sheep hear my voice and they listen to me.  They go in and out by the gate and find pasture.  I go before them, laying my life down for the sheep."

I know that I am not wise.  But I think that if there is one paramount lesson of the Gospel of Jesus, it is this:  God does not work in ways reasonable to man.  The economy of the Kingdom of Heaven is GRACE and WONDER, not some Earthly system that is based only on the safe or the explicable.  The Gospel is paradox, and God's love is completely nonsensical.

My faith has been, and I believe it will always continue to be, a never-ending confession of how utterly mysterious the Lord is.  I confess that there is much I do not understand.  All I know is that, as Oswald so kindly pointed out, I continue to be changed.

Here is a Seryn song for you, called "We Will All be Changed."  It is about life lessons.  "We can shape but can't control these possibilities to grow, weeds amongst the push and pull, waiting on the wind to take us..."

If you have not done so in awhile, I suggest a quick look back at the past to see how far the Lord has brought you, and how far he wishes to take you in the future.