TODAY’S RESPONSE TO OSWALD

This might become a daily post, but time and readers will tell.

First, a little background. Sixteen days ago, I recommenced reading Oswald Chambers’s book, My Utmost For His Highest. It seems to be one of those books that, while it may be tough reading the first time, improves considerably with subsequent ones.

It’s one of those books you can have on the shelf for years and then, dipping back into it, discover many treasures in it which you didn’t see years before.
Today, the first sentence which really struck home with me was, “For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workaday world in which we live.”

‘Unworldly and useless people’. Is there anyone reading this post who hasn’t, at least intermittently, felt that way about themselves? I know that’s how I feel about myself too often for comfort.

How many of us feel like real worldly success stories, really? Then again, God seems to have a habit of picking up those who are seen and/or see themselves as worldly failures and teaching them to ‘aim’ for Him and His Heaven as opposed to earth. C.S. Lewis made the observation that, “Aim at Heaven and you’ll have Earth ‘thrown in’; aim at Earth and you will get neither.” He uses caring for one’s health as an analogy on page 104 of Mere Christianity, ISBN 0–02–086940–1.