Right Things Wrong Reasons

 Most of you are familiar, I think, with “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers. Tony and I have made it a tradition to include it with breakfast every morning, for the simple fact that it’s so often “spot on” with whatever we happen to be dealing with that day.

On August 10th, for example, Oswald wrote, “To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God’s will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not.”

I had to chuckle when I thought of things over the years I’d cooked up on my own, ostensibly to ‘please God’ (read in: to suffer for His sake).  I remember a several week ‘fast’ that Tony and I decided to do.  It was involving a church plant, which sounded like the best of reasons; but now when I think back, I believe there may have been a bit of prideful motivation involved.

Anyway, we accomplished the challenge, and thank God to this day for the experience, but even now I feel a little like a kindergartener who has offered a plaster ash tray or something like that to God.  I can still imagine Him saying something like, “Well done, Kids!”

But somewhere in the back of my mind/heart, His Voice continues: “That’s not what I would have had you do, but it was a nice thought.”

If you have ever seen the classic Australian movie, “The Castle”, you can appreciate the hint of irony when the father says to his child, “This is going straight to the pool room!" Let me know if you need me to unpack that a bit.

Another missionary we knew in Africa, just lived to ‘sacrifice’.  I remember him telling me he went into a village where there was some big “endaba”. (a confrontation of some sort amongst themselves). He told me proudly, “I got their attention and through a translator, I told them I was an ambassador for Christ and they could kill me if that would help”. Then he laid down on the ground and waited.  

“What happened?” I said, barely hiding my shock.

“Oh, they all looked at me on the ground, and sort of shook their heads and then walked away!” He replied. 

To which I countered, “But you could have been killed!” and he said, “Ah, that would have been glory”.

Unfortunately for him, the dear soul never got his chance for a martyr’s death. Long after retirement, he came in from church one day, sat down on the couch and was lifted up to glory. 

All of this was still on my mind when last Monday (September 9), Oswald reminded me that, "True earnestness is found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that is born of undisciplined human nature."  I had to read that a couple of times before it began to soak in, then … Ouch!  That hit me a little too close to home. 

Why do we do what we do? Are we honestly wanting to please God, or is there a part of us that wants to please ourselves or perhaps enjoy the praise of others in the process?

A guess a good rule of thumb would be to wait: Wait for orders, THEN go for it, heart mind and soul! There’s a lot of great things out there we can do, but there might be a few “greater” things set up by God with just you in mind.

Exciting times!

Marsha  

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).