31 days left!... and this too is a process...

I was reading today from 'My Utmost for His Highest', and was prompted by the Lord to reevaluate the motivations behind my thoughts and actions. If you read this book, you'll notice that I'm a couple of days behind (this is the July 28th reading), but here's the passage that made me stop and think:

    God's training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
    God's purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.

        -quoted from 'My Utmost for His Highest, An Updated Edition in Today's Language' by Oswald Chambers. Edited by James Reimman. Discovery House Publishers, 1992

Wow. I have been trying to make myself wait patiently for God, to be at peace in the 'here-and-now', and to leave things in His Almighty hands. But I didn't look on these waiting periods as God's training in my life. Instead I saw them as trials to be endured.

That's not what God has in mind at all. He is teaching me obedience to Him in waiting. Testing and building my faith in Him in all circumstances. Faith in God's perfect plan is easy when things seem to be moving along nicely. Not so easy, however, when things seem to go wrong or just to be at a standstill.

If only I had realized this during past 'dry spells' in my spiritual life. They didn't happen because I was somehow not 'close enough' to God. They happened because He was trying to turn my heart back to unconditional obedience to His will. Trying to do things on my own strength is pushing God out of the picture. And He was gracious enough to allow me to see how futile that is. God definitely calls us to action in service to Him, but the difference between what I was trying to do and what He wants me to do is that that action can only be through Him. Not 'what I need to do', but 'what God needs to do through me.'

Father, I submit to your will in all things. I praise you for your sovereign plan for everything. I worship you, Lord, and I cast down my life at your feet. Whether it is times when you call me to action, or times when you call me to obedience to Your will in being still and waiting on You. Give me a heart that seeks after you, Jesus. A heart that is obedient in all things. The consequences and results of my actions are not for me to worry about. Everything I say and do belongs fully and only to You. I wait on You, Lord. Give me the wisdom to learn from every moment of my life. I love You, my Father, my King, my Savior.