For those of you who are following, here is the latest installment of Oswald Chambers daily devotionals.
From "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers
"Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery"
February 19th
"Arise, shine..." (Isaiah 60:1)
"When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us - He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue - a matter of obediance. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery - washing fishermen's feet. He then says to them, 'If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet' (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer's body has become 'the temple of the Holy Spirit' (1 Corinthians 6:19)."
Oswald really knows how to hit me where I live! My favorite line in this is " drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character." This could apply to something as broad as digging wells in a foreign country on a mission trip or it could be something much more close to home. It also applies to the endless routine most of us live : get up, get everyone dressed, make breakfast, get to school (s), get to work, work all day, stop at grocery store, rush home, make dinner, get to ballgames, scouts, dance, practice, etc., get home, help with homework, do load of laundry, get showers, get in bed early so we can start over again tomorrow morning! The routine of life can very much seem like drudgery at times! But to quote one of my Sunday School leaders, Kevin Spaugh, "God doesn't call most of us to the mission field, he calls us to raise Godly families." Sin can creep in when we start seeing life's routine as drudgery. It can make us look for "excitement" in other ways, places and people and that can destroy families and marriages. When we embrace our routines we see them more as security, comfort, consistancy and foundational then we see them less as "drudgery". That is God's test and gift to us.
Next week we will read Oswald's words on "Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming". Thanks Oswald!!
