Archive for the ‘Bible Study’ Category

Suck it Up

Posted: July 7, 2009 in Bible Study, Trust
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Oswald Chambers (My Utmost For His Highest) – July 7

How many times had I heard the words “practice makes perfect” growing up. My mom would say it as I began making excuses for why I didn’t want to play the piano. Those Sonatina’s and Sonata’s were a bear to tackle, and it seemed as though I would never learn how to play them all the way through without making mistakes. I can practically hear my mocking tone as I echoed my mom’s words under my breath…”practice makes perfect”, making my way to the piano stool to begin my daily practice.

And how many times did I hear those words while complaining on the way to soccer practice growing up? From age five, the time I first played for a soccer team, the mantra continued. It seemed to invade every worthwhile area of my life.

But by High School and College, I didn’t need to hear those words anymore. I knew it to be true. Practice did make perfection. How else could I explain the things my body was able to do during a match. How else could I stop a 60 mph ball from entering a 24 x 8 ft space?

Perfection, in this context, is of course relative. I clearly got scored on…A LOT…but I did rank #1 in the country for NCAA Division I goalies for a period of time, and I did end up #3 in the country for two seasons running. So practice had to have had a part in that. Practicing taught my body to react heroically and instinctively in match-play situations, and victory was my reward. Game time was a testing of my disciplines, practice, and hard work…and when we beat Colgate for the first time ever in 25 yrs. on their home field in front of 10,000 of their fans, THAT was a noble and victorious moment in time.

Thank God He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a glad thing, but it is also a heroic, holy thing. It tests us for all we are worth…If we obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has put in us by His Spirit, then when the crisis comes, we shall find that our own nature as well as the grace of God will stand by us.

Oswald Chambers – My Utmost For His Highest (July 7)

Are you finding that God’s will is not so easy? Are you tired of all the discouraging upward battles that come your way? Do you question God’s will for you because life doesn’t go according to “plan“? All noble things are difficult. This has also been rephrased as ‘nothing good comes easy’. When you’re feeling this way, look for God’s promises, and hold on tight to it. Go to practice, because practice makes perfect.

“For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).


Don’t Calculate Without God

Posted: July 5, 2009 in Bible Study, Trust
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...He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun

...He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun

Oswald Chambers’ daily devotion (My Utmost For His Highest) – July 5

I’m a spreadsheet kind of guy. The people that are close to me know that I love my Excel spreadsheets. I use them to keep track of everything! For example, it helps me to follow the balances of my bank accounts and transactions. I also use them to project annual spending behaviors or to monitor the total cost of owning a car. I even use them to evaluate the behavioral patterns of the  relationships that I keep.

Ok…just kidding. I don’t use them to track my finances…

And why do I like them? It’s because I like predictability. I like seeing patterns and projecting outcomes. I appreciate the ability to identify a future problem, and remedy a trend before it gets out of hand. In short, I am a control freak. So what happens when something doesn’t go according to plan? Where does my mind go? I go straight to my Excel spreadsheet for “life”, and look to identify what went wrong. Did I miss a step that threw off the rest of the computation? What variable did I miss? Where did I go wrong? Going through life in this way is exhausting.

Have you ever known someone to freak out about trying to find the perfect gift for someone? Here’s a novel idea…if you know that person well enough, and if you actually pay attention and listen to them throughout the year, you might actually know what they want. Instead, we go through life, trying to find the “perfect gift”, when all we really need to do is draw near to God and come into a close relationship with Him. Then we’ll have a much better idea of what God wants from us. Instead, we go through life, calculating and projecting based on the variables around us, going about our planning of things as if we have total control of it all. But we rarely stop to ask God himself whether we’re on the right track. If we’re looking to please Him, we should just ask Him more often what He wants.

But what if we are “calculating with God“? What if we’ve said from the start, and have continually said throughout, “God, I won’t move forward with my plans until I know this is what you want”? Take MPF for example. We prayed from the very beginning that our relationship was His, and that we wanted to be obedient to His will. And when we started talking about marriage, we reminded God (as if He needed reminding) that we wouldn’t move forward without it being His will. And then I started shopping for rings, and I dialogued for months with God, and told Him repeatedly that I wouldn’t actually buy a ring until I knew that it was His will. And then…poof! The relationship suddenly dissolved into thin air – after, of course, I bought the perfect ring.

God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the things we have calculated on without taking Him into account.

Oswald Chambers – My Utmost For His Highest – July 5 Devotional

Well, things were upset all right. But the thing that I don’t understand is that I thought I had taken Him into account. Is Chambers right here? Is it possible to ‘calculate with God’, and still have things fall apart? Does one infer the other? Just because I calculated with God, does it necessarily mean that things will go according to my plan? At least in the case of me and MPF, I would have to say ‘NO’.

As I read this verse tonight, I was suddenly restored with peace and comfort and victory. Yes, VICTORY.

Psalm 37:4-6

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn...

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn...

There’s that word that keeps popping up – Trust. It’s only five letters, but it’s a huge word. It carries a lot of weight, but it also has a great reward. Wow. He will make my righteousness shine like the dawn? Have you seen a sunrise lately? It’s a beautiful and powerful thing. It actually elicits a physiological response in my body…and it’s always tied to peace, inspiration, and awe every time I see it. And the notion that my cause would be like a noonday sun – the strongest light of day – says a lot about how powerful I can be if only I trust in Him.

We may not understand why our plans fail…even if we think we are calculating with God in mind…but if we Trust in Him…does it really matter?

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