My plans... God’s plans

W

hen I graduated from high school, our principal gave a book to each person in the graduating class—Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest. I read snippets from time to time, but never really absorbed what I read because I didn’t engage the thoughts—I didn’t weigh the message and consider the ramifications. I simply read in a dutiful manner and then put the book back on the shelf.

And now... 35 years later, I picked the book up again at the recommendation of a friend. And I’m glad I have done so. I can now see why this book has become a classic.

Today’s reading:

Fellowship in the Gospel

Scripture

1 Thessalonians 3:2.

After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that,” you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.

I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, “Lord, this causes me such heartache.” To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy “world within the world,” and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being “frost-bitten.”

I have a long way to go.