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We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.
What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process—that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.
God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end.
God’s end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; but if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious. (Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest July 28)
The more I thought about this in relation to many of the things I have been learning over the past few years the more sense this made. From a sinful, human perspective we are used to living in a culture of goals and objectives and jobs that we intend to reach, achieve and accomplish. In the process of living this way and being motivated by society around us with this kind of thinking we come to believe that satisfaction and contentment will be realized when we reach our goals. How many times do we find ourselves saying things like, “When I get married...”, “When I graduate then...”, “When I get enough money...” and any other endless number of goals and desires we have for our life. But what we often overlook is that this kind of thinking usually robs us of the ability to face and enjoy the present moment as we experience it. We have this same kind of thinking in our religious lives that simply reflects our humanistic point of view of reality. We expect to do great things for God, put a lot of emphasis on the numbers of souls won (to our point of view), give great praise and notoriety to the accomplishments of missionaries and “successful” preachers, and the list goes on.
But it does not take too long in living life to begin to realize that reaching many of these goals often leaves us with a subtle or not so subtle feeling of disappointment when the immense feeling of satisfaction and release that we were inwardly expecting does not fully materialize. I think this phenomena explains a great deal of the problems that occur right after things like graduations, proms, and all sorts of other achievement-oriented events that are too often followed by drunkenness, immorality or other attempts to achieve pleasure and find satisfaction. This is often because after the accolades are over we come to the realization that we are still the same person and life must go on from here. What we have not really learned in all of our goal-oriented lifestyle is how to live well in the present moment, each moment, with joy and satisfaction and peace that produces a deep sense of thriving and ongoing excitement about being alive.
If I think about this from what God may see instead of our human viewpoint it seems to me like maybe God is not hardly interested at all in achieving goals and job-oriented living. That is because quantifying life into packets labeled as jobs or carefully segmented time periods of education etc. means that each one of these segments has an end. From heaven's perspective things that have an end can look an awful lot like death, which has no place in heaven's order of living. Therefore, in a sense, when we finish a job or four years of schooling or whatever other segmented goal we use to partition our lives with, we are in a way coming to the death of that part of our lives. Unfortunately too often at that point we are still no more practiced in how to really live life in the present at these preset times of “death” and so they become something like frustrating celebrations of futility.
We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.
As I try to see life from heaven's perspective it makes much more sense that God is very interested in training us how to live in the present moment every moment with the right perspective and the right skills learned to live in healthy relationships with those around us. This is because we are designed to live forever, an eternity of being more and more fully alive with no endpoints – ever! So to prepare us for that very different kind of life-mentality God is trying to teach us what it looks like to live with a view of how to live a continuous-type of life instead of a goal-reaching kind of life that we label as “success”.
His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God.... His end is the process—that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.
I see now more clearly that God's desire for me is to learn how to be fully alive and live constantly in the awareness of His presence and His love for me. That is the real backdrop that empowers me to be able to remain calm and unperplexed no matter what is going on around me. It is learning to listen to the very quiet voice of God in my heart and mind with a spirit of instant obedience. This requires tuning out the other noisy interference that normally drowns out or numbs my ability to hear and feel His gentle promptings.
God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end.
God’s end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; but if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.
This is the most important training that we have in this life because it is this skill that prepares us to live not only “successfully” in any sort of circumstance in this life but prepares us to become a very intimate and real part of the fully assembled body of Christ when it is fully revealed in the day of Judgment. For His body will be composed of those who have learned to live in the immediate present, drawing their identity and life from their sense of the presence of God in that immediate present and experiencing through their sacrifice of obedience the preciousness of life in the immediate present/Presence.
We are very strange, us two! I just wrote something called "The Gold-In Life" on my website. Actually, just posted it after writing on it for more than 24 hours! (Jim went to bed, got up and has now gone for breakfast and will bring me a plate of food.)
ReplyDeleteI think I missed the main point - to live gloriously in the moment. Or, did I say that? Hummm
I enjoyed this posting, but as usual, I must come back and re-read it several times for the message to be understandable in my head.
There is a ot of wisdom in what Oswald Chambers here writes. I do thin we often define our lives more by the accomplishments than we do the process. This can lead to undo turmoil, however, when the "accomplishments" we anticipate, in fact, turn to "failures".
ReplyDeleteConversely, at the same time, we cannot ignore Paul's statement that he was continually "pressing towards the mark". What revolutionized a lot of my biblical understanding was to begin to understand that within the christian life there is a sense that all we have in Christ is 'now', 'presently', and 'ultimately'. In one way of speaking we are saved, we are being saved, and we will ultimately be saved. Error occurs when we focus too heavily on any one aspect at a time. Thus the processes (events / accomplishments) of life fit into the same framework. Hopefully this makes sense.
Thank-you, both of you for your perspective and thoughts. I even have to read my own posts after they are written to try to understand what emerged sometimes during the process of capturing what seems to be someone else's ideas at times.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Colin that we nearly always have a problem of focus. I think we are also dealing with the issue of God having to "dumb down" His communications with us to a level that we are able to accept them with the corresponding danger that in the process of simplification His broader principles or perspectives can be misunderstood or misconstrued. But grace is always here to overcome those difficulties as well for anyone willing to trust His heart. This is a very important truth that I am trying to remember much more these days.