Monday, February 05, 2007

Out of the mouth of Oswald

Waiting to hear on my submitted book proposal and receiving requests and opportunities to help others with their work.

I am so tempted to ask "Hey God, what about my work?" Especially today, for some reason. Then I read this from Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest...

"Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all." Philippians 2:17

Are you willing to be offered for the work of the faithful - to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say - "I am not going to be offered up just yet, I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching and saying, 'Well done.'

It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people's feet. Suppose God wants to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased" - are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket - to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.

How does God do it? Keeping me humble could be a full time job, it seems. Yet, I know that he is busily doing the same for countless others.

A drop in the bucket, indeed.

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