Encouragement from Chambers

I learned to love “My Utmost For His Highest”, a daily devotional by Oswald Chambers, when I stayed with the Hamilton’s in Galway. Coming down in the morning, I would invariably find Mary sitting in the kitchen reading this precious book. She shared passages with me that were beautiful, encouraging, and fortifying. I meant to bring my copy to South Sudan but left it behind on accident, so I have been hunting for a decent Kindle version. In the search, I reread the entry for January 2 that I would like to share with you.

Will You Go Out Without Knowing?

He went out, not knowing whither he went. - Hebrews 11:8

Have you been “out” in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christian work is this questions - “What do you expect to do?” You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God know what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder - you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a “going out,” building in confidence on God. “Take no thought for your life,...nor yet for your body” - take no thought for the things for which you did take thought before you “went out.”

Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you go out in surrender to Him until you are not surprised an atom at anything He does?

Suppose God is the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him, what an impertinence worry is! Let the attitude of the life be a continual “going” out in dependence upon God, and your life will have an ineffable charm about it which is a satisfaction to Jesus. You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until, so far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing between yourself and God.

(Chambers 1935)

The first thing I think of when I read this is the James Taylor song “Country Road”. Mama don’t understand it. She wants to know where I’ve been. I’ve got to be some kind of natural-born fool to wanna pass that way again.

I was much given to wandering as a kid, and my mother’s prudence was frequently irksome to me. When asked where I was going, I thought that “I don’t know” was a perfectly appropriate answer, but she, wisely, did not. Chambers takes my insolent 10-year-old philosophy about evening walks and applies it to the Christian walk.

Whatever going out looks like to us, if we are going out to school, going out to East Africa, or going out to the laundry room, if we are going out in faith, we truly have no logical explanation of what we are doing. We don’t know where we are going. We don’t know what we should do along the way or what we should do when we get there. All we know is that God knows what He is doing, and that is enough.

Even though Abraham did not know where he was going, he did receive a specific call from God to go out. Both the receiver of the call and the context of the call are worth noting.

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. (Genesis 12:1-5, NLT)

Here we have an older, childless man from a family of idolaters in a patriarchal society called to leave the land of his fathers to separate a people to the Lord Most High. Not the most qualified candidate imaginable, but still the one chosen by God.

Another interesting aspect of this call is how God prepares the call to Abraham.

One day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (his son Abram’s wife), and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran. (Genesis 11:31-32, NLT)

Abraham was enroute to Canaan, but had settled in Haran for a while, so the idea of going to Canaan was not unfamiliar. When God’s call to Abraham came, his father and brother had died removing a very strong tie to remain. God often (not always) makes smooth the paths of our feet as we follow Him. These are small examples of the gentle, compassionate leading of our Father who takes us places we don’t understand.

Most of us aren’t given a specific, personal call by God like Abraham received. Such precise directions are called God’s hidden will. They are hidden because we don’t need to know them. However, God does have a revealed will for our lives. It is found all over Scripture in His Law. Do Justly. Love mercy. Keep My commandments. These are the things we know. These are the things we can follow by grace. These are the words that guide us as we go out, not knowing whither we go.

The path from my house - sometimes in the rainy season it's not a question of "Wither am I going?" but more like "Why am I going?" and "Am I really sure I want to be going?"