Two years ago, the guys bought me a little leather copy of Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest" daily devotional. It has changed my life. Seriously. Every day I read in it, and every day I am encouraged, convicted, and reminded again and again and again of God's unchanging Truths. Still can't figure out how I even survived before I knew of this book. If you don't have a copy yet, get one! Now! :)
I have been particularly struck by recent readings, specifically those that deal with Life in the Ordinary. What are we striving for? We must have the faith to live between the mountaintops, to grab hold of the promises that looked so clear on top of the mountain, and keep holding onto them even when we're trudging through Yet Another Valley.
From November 16th: "The great marvel of the Incarnation slips into ordinary childhood's life; the great marvel of the Transfiguration vanishes in the devil-possessed valley; the glory of the Resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anti-climax, but a great revelation of God.
"The tendency is to look for the marvelous in our experience.... It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us. If we do not want medieval haloes, we want something that will make people say -- 'what a wonderful man of prayer he is! What a pious devoted woman she is!' .... It takes God's spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that we are utterly unnoticeable. The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is."
-Ems
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