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extremely relevant, not only for his situation but for myself as well. The whole passage is really a definition for the concept and importance of “abandonment”.
The main crux of today's reading is the theme throughout the whole book, that is, that abandonment must be for Jesus Himself and not for what we get out of it. “Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it – 'I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.' All that is the result of being right with God, but the spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, “No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy showroom and be able to say – “This is what God has done for me.”' If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God – these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.”
As I read through the complete reading I realized that this abandonment that he is talking about is closely linked to the correct understanding and experience of a covenant relationship. It involves an unrestrained, unlimited commitment to another person without any provision for retraction or withdrawal from the relationship. And since marriage is a miniature model of the relationship that God intensely desires to have with each one of us personally, then this kind of abandonment is also needed in the marriage relation for it to become really stable and fulfilling.
I will be the first to admit I am far from experiencing this either in my own relationship with God or in my marriage. But the first step is being aware of it and cultivating a desire to live this way and then I need to orient my choices and plans in line with the spirit of abandonment. It requires dying to my selfishness on a continual basis which is a real challenge but is so necessary if I want to experience the fullness of life only found in total abandonment.
Even saying that seems to be looking more to what I can get out of the experience than focusing on the other person, doesn't it. It seems that even my attempts to express and grapple with these ideas can become almost double-talk because I am starting from a base of natural selfishness to begin with. Again, I have to simply through myself on the amazing mercy and grace of God to create this experience and desire in my life because He says He can do it and He wants to. And then I realize that I have really come back to the core issue that I started with, for in throwing myself on His mercy I am choosing to abandon myself to Him which is what I was originally designed for.
This is quite a challenging post. When I read Biblical stories like Abraham, called to sacrifice his son before the Lord, and the fact that he got up early the very next day to do so, and then the episode with Matthew (Levi) where Jesus just walked up to him, said 'come follow Me' and he did, I feel quite inadequate. These are only two examples, but what faith they showed (what abandonment!)! I can do nothing more than to simply thropw myself on God's mercy.
ReplyDeleteJust to let you know I'm 'listening' here. Where do you find all the words to keep writing so much everyday? I wish you could bind it all into a book. Others have done so with much less to say.
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