Ironies

Well well, it seems like this little pattern of "celebrating the ordinary" that I mentioned in my recent post is following me. There have been a number of different reminders for me lately that living life as big as you can in each moment is really important. I think it's so wild how ironies of life happen to reinforce certain things like this going on at certain times.

My devotion the other day was on this very topic and I thought I'd share it here. This is taken from 'My Utmost for His Highest' by good ol' (bee-hind kicking) Oswald Chambers:

Getting Into God's Stride

The test of a man's religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting going on. The worth of a man is revealed in his attitude to ordinary things when he is not before the footlights. It is a painful business to get through into the stride of god; it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with god, there is always the difficulty of getting into his stride; but when we have got into it, the only characteristic that manifests itself is the life of god. The individual man is lost sight of in his personal union with god, and the stride and the power of god alone are manifested.

It is difficult to get into the stride of god because, when we start walking with him, we find he has outstripped us before we have taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things and we have to be trained and disciplined into his ways. It was said of Jesus "he shall not fail nor be discouraged" because he never worked from his own individual standpoint but always from the standpoint of his father, and we have to learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned by atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God's spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which were never possible before. Getting into the stride of god means nothing less than union with himself. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it.

Don't give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it. Before long, you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose.

Well said, brother Oswald, well said.