This booklet from Oswald Chambers is presented in two parts with subsections as outlined here. First comes The Message of Invincible Consolation. This is followed by a section titled The Worker and Things As They Are. They reflect upon the passages of 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 and 2 Cor 6:1-10.

The Beyond Within

Therefore we do not lost heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. (2 Cor. 4:16)

Ah, how I love these verses and the cries of longing that reach from hearts that know this truth. There are countless books and songs that wrestle this relationship we have with unseen things. Such is our story. I’ve often written about these very things myself. Our longing for the unseen stems directly from the brokenness of our reality. They go hand in hand. God formed us of dirt and placed us in a garden to walk the land, breathe the air, taste the fruit of the earth, and dwell in physical human form — and to know Him. We were made in a way that unseen things might pulse through these living veins. The seen and unseen were never meant for divorce. This earthly tent in which we dwell was meant for glory. Redeemed and remade, we live out of phase with the reality that surrounds us. Have we a heavenly mindset for our calling here on Earth?

A good test for a worker is to ask this question: Does my inner life wing itself higher with every wearing of the body in work for God? If we are going to walk in the experimental knowledge of sanctification and live where God wants us to live, we must be willing to spend and be spent to the last ebb. But if the outward man is perishing because of an injudicious waste of physical strength or because of wrong habits, then it will always make us faint, i.e., ‘cave in’; and if we give up prayer and communion with God, then the decay goes on to a terrible extent; there is no corresponding inward weight of glory, no inner winging.

If we put the body and the concerns of the body before the eternal weight of glory, we will never have any inner winging at all, we will always be asking God to patch up this old tabernacle and keep it in repair. But when the heart sees what God wants, and knows that the body must be willing to spend and be spent for that cause and that cause alone, then the inner man gets wings.

The Beautifying Work

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory… (2 Cor. 4:17)

I once began writing a book and it opened with this vision of glory. It often comes to mind when I encounter this verse. Here’s a brief bit from the first paragraph:

These mysterious things hinted at a place towards which the deeper recesses of his heart were ever inclined … a place beyond the horizon … a place to which he must return. So, there, in the dark, early morning, Ahtyd again found himself homesick … longing to be bound beyond dreams, beneath the weight of glory.

There is a comfort that cannot be overcome – an invincible consolation. Though we’ve been enlisted in the battle, we rejoice in the knowledge that Jesus reigns victorious. We need not only endure the afflictions of this world, but we rejoice in them as they work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We need not despair — glory is near.

The Blessed Vision

… while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:18)

And so, as deep calls to deep, we are given a vision of glory. We are renewed, restored, and our broken and burdened hearts are reclaimed for glory’s sake. It is not just that our heavenly mindedness rights us for eternity, but it rights us for earthly living. We are not only given a vision of the unseen things to come, but of the unseen things that God would have us manifest today. This portion reminded me of where we began this journey. Then, we read of The Graciousness of Uncertainty and here, it seems, Chambers introduces us to the graciousness of affliction.

Considering afflictions as 'a means of grace'. 2Cor4:16-18 #MissionText pic.twitter.com/91eW7fOHRR

— Ua Vandercar (@UaMV) September 29, 2015

The Worker and Things As They Are

We then, as workers together with him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor. 6:1-2)

The Worth to God

When God’s great redemptive work has issued in lives in salvation and sanctification, then the work of the worker begins.

We are God’s fellow workers. Our work is not to save souls — such is of the Spirit. Our work is to love Him and to love one another. In prayer and in listening to the Holy Scriptures, we devote ourselves to God — we commit ourselves to the Truth — relationship restored. And, in loving our neighbor, in caring for the poor, the down-trodden, the oppressed, the widowed, the orphaned, we work for His kingdom come on earth. May we so discipline our lives and encourage others in the same.

The Wooing of God

It is not the tones of a man’s speech, or the passion of a man’s personality, it is the pleading power of the Holy Ghost coming through him; consequently the worker has no sympathy with things with which God’s Spirit has no sympathy.

The World’s Coarse Thumb

We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. (2 Cor. 6:3)

The world is glad of an excuse not to listen to the Gospel message, and the inconsistencies of Christians is made the excuse. #MissionText

— Ua Vandercar (@UaMV) October 1, 2015

The Wheel of Circumstances

But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love … (2 Cor. 6:4-6)

Holiness can only be worked out in and through the din of things as they are. God does not slide holiness into our hearts like a treasure box from heaven and we open the lid and out it comes; holiness works out in us as it worked out in our Lord. The holiness of God Almighty is Absolute; that is, it knows no development by antagonism. The holiness exhibited by the Son of God, and by God’s children is the holiness which expresses itself by means of antagonism.

The Wine of God

… by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. (2 Cor. 6:7-10)

You cannot be poured out wine if you remain a whole grape; you cannot be broken bread if you remain whole grain. Grapes have to be crushed, and grain has to be ground; then the sweetness of the life comes out to the glory of God.

We live in the space between dearth and glory. This is the weight with which we live. It is but a light affliction. And yet, it is near to nothing as we anchor in hope — assured of the faithfulness of God.

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all days long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

In these verses Paul does not mention the ordinary trials of life He mentions the imperilling experiences which thousands have gone through these past years, distress and anguish which hold the eyes too much awake to sleep, tribulation that tears and lacerates everything; but, he says, the love of God is untouched by these experiences. That love renders impotent the strength of our most formidable enemy. Any of the elemental ministries, life, death, things present, things to come, may kill the castles built by human love; may remove and shatter them like an incoming tide. Their strength is overwhelming. But these things are powerless to touch the love of God in Christ Jesus.

In The Fighting Chance, Oswald Chambers walks us onto a hillside overlooking the battle for our soul. In studying the war, He points out how we will fight on the mental, moral, and material fields. He strategizes with us in the skills of natural and supernatural manoeuvres. He fits us for the fight that we might know the victory given us in Jesus.

Chambers addresses how we will be assaulted upon entering the fray by picking apart these verses from Romans 8. He gives insight and encouragement in response to each point at which attempts will be made to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Shall tribulation separate us? No.
Shall distress? No.
Persecution? No.
Famine, nakedness, peril, sword? No. No. No. No.
Death? Life? No!
Angels? Principalities? Powers? Uh-uh.
Things present? Things to come? No way!
Height? Depth? No!
Any other created thing? No other created thing.

Are we even aware that there is a battle being waged? It is a grander ordeal than the small annoyances we face each day — though those may well weaken us for our frontline engagements. Get to know this truth — that you have been enlisted as a warrior. And get to know this greater truth — we have victory in Christ. What does that mean for the fight? It means that we have been given a fighting chance and shall prevail — not only as conquerors, but as more than conquerors. God fit you for the fight.

Here are some excerpts for your consideration:

God can impart to a man the power to select what his mind thinks, the power to think only what is right and pure and true.

‘All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution,’ says Paul, and our Lord says the same thing—men will make you destitute of their society, they will cut you dead, and when they do speak of you, they will speak evil. No man knew this better than the apostle Paul, and what did he do? He despised being despised! Persecution does not leave us alone, it is systematic vexation, something that throngs us; but to be boycotted means to be left alone, destitute of the comrades you used to have—’they think it strange,’ says Peter, ‘that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot.’ But they don’t know that you carry a wonderful kingdom within, a kingdom full of light and peace and joy no matter how destitute and alone you may be on the outside. That is the wonderful work of the Lord in a man’s soul. ‘Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy.’

It is never stated that God has provided a place for men who will not come to Him; it is implied with solemn warning that the only place they can go to is that ‘prepared for the devil and his angels.’ The good angels are a host and the bad angels are a host. To-day spiritualism is having tremendous vogue; men and women are getting in to communication with departed spirits and putting themselves in league with the unseen powers. If you have got as far as reading fortunes in tea-cups, stop. If you have gone as far as telling fortunes by cards, stop. I will tell you why—the devil uses these apparently harmless things to create a fearful curiousity in the minds of men and women, especially young men and women, and it may bring them into league with the angelic forces that hate God, into league with the principalities and the rulers of this world’s darkness. Never say, ‘What is the harm in it?’ Push it to its logical conclusion and ask—’Where will this end?’ You are absolutely safe as long as you remain under the shelter of the atonement; but if you do not (I do not care what your experiences are), you are absolutely unsafe, at any minute dangers may beset you, terrors and darkness may take hold of you and rack your life with terrific perils. God grant we may keep as far away from these things as we can. But if in the strange providence of God you find you are near a spiritualist meeting, pray, and keep on your praying, and you will paralyse every power of the medium if he is genuine. No spiritualistic séance can continue if there is a Christian anywhere near who knows how to lay hold of God in prayer; no spirits will communicate. I could tell you wonderful stories of how God’s power has worked. Blessed be God, Jesus Christ’s salvation makes us more than conqueror over the angelic forces.

Death is a great dread. It is easy to say that God is love until death has snatched away your dearest friend, then I defy you to say that God is love unless God’s grace has done a work in your soul. Death means extinction of life as we understand it; our dead are gone and have left an aching void behind them; they do not talk to us, we do not feel their touch, and when the bereaved heart cries out nothing comes back but the hollow echo of its own cry. The heart is raw, no pious clatter, no scientific cant can touch it. It is the physical calamity of death plus the thing behind, which no man can grasp, that makes death so terrible. We have so taken for granted the comfort that Jesus Christ brings in the hour of death that we forget the awful condition of men apart from that revelation. Do strip your mind and imagination of the idea that we have comfort about the departed apart from the Bible; we have not. Every attempt to comfort a bereaved soul apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ brings in a vain speculation. We know nothing about the mystery of death apart from what Jesus Christ tells us; but blessed be the Name of God, what He tells us makes us more than conquerors, so that we can shout the victory through the darkest valley of the shadow that ever a human being went through.

By the help of God’s Spirit I want, for one moment, to lift the veil from the unseen world as the Bible reveals it that we may understand what a marvellous salvation we have; a salvation that keeps us not only from dangers we see and know, not only from sin and all we understand as the works of the devil, but a salvation that keep us from dangers we know nothing about. Oh, there are tremendous possibilities around us!

Let God have His way, and He will turn the drama of your life into a doxology, and you will understand why the Psalmist breaks out with the words, ‘Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!’ Jesus Christ can make the weakest man into a Divine dreadnought, fearing nothing.

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love. (1 Corinthians 16:13-14)

Edit: I forgot that I wanted to include this song. During the days reading through this booklet, I happened upon Keep on the Firing Line (which I had never heard). I’m sure there are many songs that address our call to fight the powers that come against the love of God for us – this one seemed striking at the time.

I sat at the coffee shop for two hours last night. They closed at 9. Still in need of space, I walked Loring Park, loitered on the walking bridge, and sat for a time on a concrete slab near the Walker Art Center – praying over Minneapolis and our part in this big city.

Having grown up in the corn fields of Indiana, I don’t know that I ever imagined living in the urban space. I suppose I don’t often imagine much of what lies years down the road, so maybe that means little. I think Youth Encounter had a part in prepping me for this time (six years now) in The Cities. During my time with them, I walked the streets of many heavily populated cities around the world — Lagos, Mumbai, Delhi, Manila, Hong Kong, to name a few. As much as I tense and ache for the open, I know there is great need for the work of God to be done in this place. Tim Keller often gives great perspective on mission to the city.

In cities you have more image of God per square inch than anywhere else on Earth ~ Tim Keller

— Alan Hirsch (@alanhirsch) April 15, 2014

It's true that we must bring the gospel to the city. But we should also recognize how much the city brings the gospel to us.

— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) July 8, 2015

Flesh and blood lie 'neath the stone and steel – and a whisper 'neath the noise.

— Ua Vandercar (@UaMV) September 26, 2015

I must admit, I have not engaged our community as I ought. I have not fellowshipped with our neighbor to any great degree. I’ve failed to be faithful to the calling in numerous ways, I am sure. God forgive me. And move. Move in us that we might sense your every gentle nudge to move for you. Calm our heart. Keep our minds clear, our motives pure, and our strength from waning. Let us give ourselves over to Your will and the work of Your kingdom. For the glory of Your Holy Name. Amen.

I know, that as Christians, we have a Jewish heritage. I know Jesus Himself was a Jew. He followed the Hebrew calendar and observed the festivals of the year. I have a decent familiarity with the Old Testament. And yet, apart from our recent Seder meals, I have never observed the festivals of the Old Testament.

Tonight, Jews around the world have begun observance of Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. This feast is decreed by God in Leviticus 16. And, just a few chapters later:

Leviticus 23:26-28
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.”

This is a holy day that the Lord Himself observed. Though we are not bound by tradition, but free in Christ, I think there may still be value in returning to the heritage of the Jewish people. God, who spoke into the midst of the His people in the wilderness, speaks into our lives today. The atonement He required, He fulfilled in Jesus. How will you observe Yom Kippur?

I suggest the following: Consider the word of God above. There may yet be benefit in rest and repentance. Also, let us praise God that He made right where we had wronged. Pray that Jews might come to meet anew their brother, Jesus — that on this Day of Atonement, they might come to believe in Jesus as the Lamb who suffered and was sacrificed for the salvation of both Jew and Gentile — that our names might be sealed in the book of life.

גמר חתימה טובה

Capitalism is not a materialistic order but has everything to do with the spirit. Capitalism does not deny the spirit by grounding desire in the material but instead effects a horizontal displacement of desire by constantly misdirecting desire from its true (vertical) home in God, by means of the enchantments of consumerism…

This is an excerpt from the book The Economy of Desire: Christianity and Capitalism in a Postmodern World by Daniel M. Bell Jr. This book was lent to me with high recommendation from a friend and after letting it adorn the shelf for months, I plowed through it this past week. I am glad I did. You ought to read this book! … and I should probably read it again.

Bell posits that the Christian way is not the capitalist way — that they are two very differing economies of desire. In reading this work, I felt as if I was able to step outside our governing societal structures for a time and take in a broader perspective of the landscape of the political, social, economic, and spiritual state of mankind. He traces the inclination of our desires and encourages the Church into an alternative way — a truer way. There are challenging words for us all.

I’ll leave you with a few excerpts:

Capitalism distorts the creative power that is human desire by constantly creating new objects/idols for its fascination. It entices desire with an endless array of distractions. The enchantments of capitalist production are distractions precisely because they cannot satisfy our desire. And as far as capitalism is concerned, this is a good thing, for satisfied desire would spell an end to capitalism, which depends on the frenetic power of unquenched desire to drive it productive engines.

In contrast, Christianity proclaims the good new that we can indeed find rest from the rat race that is the conflict of the capitalist market. Our desire finds its true home, it rest, its delight in communion with God. Desire’s true fascination is the radiance of love that is the glorious life of the blessed Trinity. For this reason, humanity might rightly be called homo adorans—worshiping beings. We are not beings caught in an endless cycle of trucking and bartering (homo economicus) but beings inclined to worship and enjoy the divine love that provides all that we need. In other words, because the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want (Ps. 23:1). We need not strive endlessly but can be content.

As desire learns in worship to rest in its true end, the capitalist economy of desire is exposed for what it is: an economy that normalizes the disordered desire that is properly named greed. Capitalism makes a virtue of what the tradition denounces as one of the seven deadly sins: avarice or greed—a restless, possessive, acquisitive drive that is lauded as the entrepreneurial spirit of homo economicus.

The disordered desire that is avarice or greed is frequently identified with a desire for money and wealth, but it encompasses more than that. Greed is first and foremost about wanting more than enough. Furthermore, it encompasses not just wealth or material goods but intangible objects as well, like honor, knowledge, and even life itself. In short, as Augustine observes, greed concerns “all things which are desired immoderately, whenever someone wants absolutely more than is enough.” Thus even the unbounded creativity celebrated by capitalism’s courtiers is a vice insofar as it is not directed by the shared love that is the common good.

The driving force of capitalism is scarcity—limited resources to meet unlimited desires. Scarcity warps desire into a grasping, acquisitive power and so prepares it for the agony that is the capitalist market. Thus the God of capital is revealed to be a stingy deity who parcels out only enough to stimulate the agony of the market, where we are forced to compete like economic gladiators in the hope that the fickle favor of the invisible hand will bestow its blessings on us.

In contrast, Christianity has long proclaimed that God has given and continues to give abundantly; there is enough. God provides for all our needs. As Chris Franks observes, there is a providential coincidence between the requirements for human flourishing and nature’s provision. The Lord is our shepherd; we do not need more (Ps. 23:1). The abundance of God is proclaimed throughout Scripture, and when Christians place themselves under the discipline of the Word, allowing their imaginations to be formed by its vision of God and the world, their desire is graciously released from the capitalist discipline and freed to flow generously.

Basil
The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not.

Proclaiming God’s abundance does not deny the reality of scarcity.

What it is does is locate the origin of scarcity where it belongs, namely, in sin. Scarcity is not a natural condition but the consequence of sin. Indeed, capitalism has been implicated in the generalization of scarcity, such that it is no longer isolated and occasional but the structure of our existence. That many languish in misery today because they lack access to things like adequate food, shelter, employment, and sundry forms of care is not due to nature or a perverse God but to the distortions of human desire that first shaped and now is shaped by an economic order that fails to use the gifts of God properly. Material scarcity, we might say, has its roots in the scarcity that is the lack of faith (Luke 18:8).

Furthermore, to say that scarcity is not a fact of nature and to assert that God provides is not to suggest that we may never suffer or go hungry. Clearly in this time between the times, God’s provision does not preclude hunger, suffering, and even death, and there is no simple or easy answer as to why this is the case Nevertheless, what God’s provision does make possible is a kind of asceticism, a hope that nurtures faithful endurance and struggle against sin-inflicted scarcity. Here we would do well to recall Christ’s suffering obedience to which we are conformed as we are joined to his body. In this time between the times, God’s abundance may take the form of martyrdom and resurrection, and the assurance that in giving our life, we actually receive life, and that although we may die, we will not perish (Matt. 22:39; Luke 9:24).

I do the book little justice with these few quotes. All I can say is, “Read the book!” Then, let me know what you think.

Looking for divine guidance? This is a good place to start —

The eternal truth is that God created me to be distinctly not Himself, but to realize Him in perfect love.

Once God has seen to making us a Christian, when we begin to understand the graciousness of life’s uncertainty, even after we’ve wrestled the possibility of a daily faithful walk with Christ, we may still entertain questions of purpose, direction, and the will of God upon our lives. Oswald Chambers, in the Discipline of Divine Guidance both sets forth a plan for disciplining our sensitivities to the movement of God’s will among us and the direction of God’s way for us and shows how God’s divine guidance disciplines us, as His children, into a way that is right.

At the outset, we are to recognize that God designed us to be other than Himself. He is the Creator — we the created.  Our course in life ought always be subject to the ruling personality of God. Chambers walks us through five stages in divine guidance — by God’s sayings, by God’s symbols, by God’s servants, by God’s sympathy, and ultimately by God Himself.

I have been party to many conversations in which there is grappling with “the will of God”. What does it mean? What does it mean for me personally? What does it mean to step outside His will? To live in it? In some way, we have been conditioned to desire knowledge of the course God has in mind for our lives. It ought not be first on our minds to know such things. Rather, it ought to be first on our minds to orient ourselves toward the things of His Kingdom. Thus, we begin in this discipline by setting our bearings aright. God has “vast possibilities” for your life. Let us pray that the shape of things might ever be knit “by the ruling personality of God”.

With this post, I’ve opted to highlight longer excerpts. I keep my comments few.

When all religions and philosophies and philologies have tried to define God, one and all sink inane and pass, while the Bible statements stand like eternal monuments, shrouded in ineffable glory: ‘GOD IS LIGHT’; ‘GOD IS LOVE’; ‘GOD IS HOLY’. Every attempted definition of God other than these sublime inspirations negates God, and we find ourselves possessed of our own ideas with never a glimpse of the living God. When the flatteries, the eulogies, the enthusiasms and the extravagances regarding Jesus Christ have become enshrined sentiments in poetry and music and eloquence, they pass, like fleeting things of mist, coloured but for a moment by reflected splendours from the Son of God, and Our Lord’s own words come with the sublime staying of the simple gentleness of God: ‘I AM THE WAY’; ‘I AM THE TRUTH’; ‘I AM THE LIFE’. When art has fixed her ideals, and contemplation has cloistered her choicest souls, and devotion has traced her tremulous records, quivering with the unbearable pathos of martyrdom, we realize that all these miss the portrayal of the saint; and again the severe adequacy of Scripture, undeflected by earth’s heart-breaks, or griefs, or sorrows, remains the true portraiture of the saint: SAVED, AND SANCTIFIED, AND SENT.

By God’s Sayings

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)

It is with the indwelling Word of God that we first begin to discipline ourselves in Divine Guidance and that God first begins to discipline us with His divine guidance. Our Creator — He who spoke the heavens into being — speaks His word into our hearts. It is not that we are to work toward applying scripture to our lives, but that we are to nurture a divine relationship with Jesus. John says, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) It is in Jesus and in the sayings of Holy Scripture, that we begin to know God’s guiding hand. Let us only open the pages of the Bible and we shall find His Spirit sending us forth.

By God’s Symbols

God often manifests spiritual truths by means of images. In such things we might glimpse His guiding hand. I’ve quoted this elsewhere and Chambers references it.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,—
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude!

In so many specific ways throughout history, God shows of His glory anew. Oh, that we might have eyes to see.  When He speaks might we have ears to listen and hearts to obey. Discernment is wrought in obedience.

By His Servants

As we consider Divine Guidance by His Servants, Oswald makes a distinction between those who are servants of God and those who are instruments of God.

An instrument is one who shows God’s sovereignty. A servant is one who, recognizing God’s sovereign will, leaps to do that will of his own free choice.

It is here, I think, that we find one of the most beautiful passages of this booklet.

But Guidance by His Servants gives a yet more intimate nearness to God Himself. It is during this discipline that we learn that no ideal is of any practical avail unless it be incarnated. If the mystic spell of Nature in her rolling air, her eternal uplands and abiding plains, her sunrise dawnings and setting glories, her perennial springs and summer nights languishing to autumn, the strenuous grip of her icy colds—if these awaken a sense of the sublime and the unreached, it ends but in a spontaneous ache when the deep within me calls to the deep outside! If the imprisoned soul of sounds makes the human spirit weep tears from too deep a well to be reached by individual suffering—if music turns the human heart into a vast capacity for something as yet undreamt of till all its being aches to the verge of infinity; if the minor reaches of our music have awaked harmonies in spheres we know not, till with dumb yearnings we turn our sightless orbs, ‘crying like children in the night, with no language but a cry’; if painters’ pictures stop the ache which Nature started, and fill for one amazing moment the yearning abysses discovered by the more mysterious thing than joy in music’s moments—it is  but for a moment, and all seems but to have increased our capacity for a crueller sensitiveness, a more useless agony of suffering. But when God’s servants guide us to His heart, then the first glorious outlines of the meaning of it all pass before us.

The lure the servants of God are made but attracts men to a wilderness wherein God woos men to Himself. #MissionText

— Ua Vandercar (@UaMV) September 4, 2015

By His Sympathy

For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:14)

The heart of God goes out for us. Guided by His sympathy, may our hearts go out for one another. Here, we step into a deeper realm of the guidance offered by God — that of a compassionate heart. Jesus modeled this very thing. He made a way of love in suffering.

It is in the mystic tenderness of the guidance by His Sympathy that God gives a love like His own. Oh, how can language put it—when the soul, the individual soul, knows God has marked all sorrows and has kept all tears till not one drop is lost, knows that ‘He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust’; when the first great surprise of the light of His sympathy bursts on our tear-dimmed soul and turns it into radiant rainbows of promise; when no Sayings of His resound on our ears with thrilling clarion call; when no visible Symbol disciplines our faltering steps; when no Servant of God is near to help us discern His will; when the cloud gathers round us, and we fear as we enter the cloud, and lo! a mystic touch is on our spirits, a coolness and balm, ‘as one whom his mother comforteth’ so the Lord comforts us. Oh, the tenderest touch of a mother’s love is nothing compared to our blessed Father’s sympathy! It is there, couched in His arms, that we are guided into that secret of secrets, that it is not men’s sins we have to deal with, but their suffering. It is ensphered in the nights when He gives us the treasures of darkness, that discipline us to be staying power in the alarm moments of other lives. What an atmosphere there breathes about the life God is guiding by His Sympathy!

By Himself

We began with God and so we end — with God. The goal of God’s divine guidance is always God Himself. Our short-lived meanderings on this earth pale in comparison to the eternal purposes of God. The end will always be Him.

Upon entering our apartment for lunch today, Aelah was singing this song over and over.

I belong to somebody.

She was correctly singing that line when I first heard her. As you can tell, it turned into something else. Hearing her sing this got me to thinking that, yes, we do belong to Somebody.

If I were to ask, “To whom do you belong?,” you may be apt to respond with disgust to such a question. “I belong to no one!,” we might want to say. We have been conditioned to esteem our individualistic and independent selves. In our consumeristic culture, we have unfortunately associated belonging with ownership. This is a popular and errant understanding of the word. Belonging is not about possession, but about position.

belong | bi-lôNG | • be rightly placed in a specified position.

We do naturally resonate with this. You’ve likely heard the heart-longing before, “I just want to belong.” With this proper understanding of what it means to belong, we wonderfully happen upon a very different answer to the question of our belonging.

Yesterday, I was given Common Prayer to peruse. As I opened the pages, these are the words that greeted me.

“Re-member-ing” has to do with becoming something new, the body of Christ, in which we lose ourselves in something bigger than ourselves; we are re-membered into a new body.

When we take the wine and bread and eat it, we are digesting Christ – or an even better way of understanding might be that we are made into a new creation as we are digested into the body of Christ. Performing the Eucharist with a community makes us into the body of Christ. As often as Christians take the common elements of bread and wine, they re-member themselves into Jesus. In the Eucharist, we don’t just remember Jesus in general; we remember his suffering. The bread is a broken body, and the wine is poured like shed blood. Both grain and grapes have to be crushed and broken to become something new together. If you are what you eat, the Eucharist is indeed the act of uniting yourself with the one who lovingly suffered at the hands of his enemies.

Maybe this is the greatest sacrament or mystery of our faith – that these broken pieces become one body.

This is where we belong. We belong to Jesus. We belong to His body. As the Church, we belong to one another. Beholden to the wonderful grace and faithfulness of God is our rightful place. Oh, that we might rejoice to sing, “I belong to Somebody!”

So, this sounds a lot like team ministry. Here are a few excerpts from the article.

The isolation experience, which will last a year.

The six-strong team will live in close quarters.

Provisions include powdered cheese and canned tuna.

…the human element of exploration and problems that arise living in tight quarters.

I think one of the lessons is that you really can’t prevent interpersonal conflicts. It is going to happen over these long-duration missions, even with the very best people.

I think maybe NASA could have saved some time and money by simply contacting Youth Encounter directly. We’ve been doing this for 50 years!

Are we going with Jesus in the life we are living now?

This question is hammered deep in the pages of this little pamphlet. This morning at the Prayer League, we were again discussing transitions (we’ve plenty on the horizon). Chuck led us in reminiscing on past directors of the mission and in celebration of God’s faithfulness through the years. We gave thanks for the unique offerings of each preceding director and the way they held to Jesus. Chuck cautioned us on how easily a fellowship can be beset and molested by peripheral concerns during times of transition.

Watch when God shifts your circumstances and see whether you are going with Jesus or siding with the world, the flesh and the devil. We wear His badge, but are we going with Him? (p. 18)

Then, Chuck exhorted us to, in all things, keep with Jesus. This must be our one thing. I pray this be our one thing.

Chambers begins this piece by delving into the topics of blamelessness and fault in the life of those reborn. He addresses the work of sanctification and being without censure before God. He writes of our daily “going out” as Abraham did – even in the “not knowing.” He then moves on to our keeping to they way as we go. It is in glorious surrender that we are made one with Christ and of the same mind. It is the work of the Spirit and its end is that we are kept and keep with Jesus along every way. Let us, then, go out, not knowing the way – confident our God does.

"If men and women do not continue to go with Jesus, they will begin to teach what undermines the kingdom of Jesus Christ." #MissionText

— Ua Vandercar (@UaMV) August 26, 2015

This is one activity that keeps us moving during the summer months in MN.

We’ve enjoyed the outdoors quite well these past few days. Thursday evening saw us at Lake Nokomis for spikeball. They kids and Adrienne enjoyed some time on the playground.

Today, we took a trip to the big farmers market, then spent some time at Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary. We’d not been there before, but is certainly a great place with some good history.

P.S. Aelah’s curls and Simeon’s cheeks in the slo-mo video are great!

Nokomis Playground

Swirl

Sugar cookie at the Farmers’ Market

Yellow brick road?

Follow, follow

Quaint building

Equilateral Boardwalk

Should we be doing this?

Look at those curls!

Bike riding to end our day out. pic.twitter.com/6D7ToHJjLZ

— Ua Vandercar (@UaMV) August 22, 2015

Because of popular news’ oft bias-laden sensationalism, I had no desire to watch the investigative videos regarding Planned Parenthood. Then, feeling the need for some sense of objectivity as I see comments posted here and there, I watched a few. There are times when words fail. This was a time when words fail – a time of silence. Voices have been silenced.

I don’t know what much I can write to process the heart-wrenchingness. Whether Planned Parenthood is actually selling baby parts or, in some twisted way, enabling research is beside the point for me. There is evil afoot and I mourn for the lostness of our society. I will likely not watch any more videos that may be released. I don’t need to gaze upon such evil.

However, there are two things I do want to share with you.

One. It tore me inside to one day be opening our envelope to the celebration of another boy, only to hear those same words (in a video) a few days later as a lab tech sifted through the remains of someone else’s little baby boy.

Two. With the raw and ugly reality of abortion being thrust before us, I think again and again of those women and men who have, once upon a time, made the choice to abort their child. If their moral compass has since been set aright, they are likely suffering – being weighed ever more with guilt, shame, and regret. Pray for these people! May they know forgiveness, consolation, and peace in Jesus.