I just finished Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God. I recommend it highly! Strong book.
I will spare you the book report, but I will say this book is careful to reveal something that I think has not been known broadly, that all Oswald Chambers writings, including My Utmost for His Highest, were written by his wife, and most of them after he was gone. It is a great story of the way his contribution was maximized by the woman who shared a brief, but meaningful, marriage with him. He died when he was my age now, 43.Isn't if funny how when you read into the detail of a story that you generally know, the emotion can still come through as if you were hearing it for the first time? I was caught by this book in that way…. wiping my eyes, and wailing at his passing. Same thing happened to me with No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green Story. I recommend it too.
The reason I searched out this book on Oswald Chambers was a quote that I read of his, which came from a friend of mine, Jason Harris, who does work in Haiti. I guess I am an unlikely candidate for the book, as I have not read anything by Oswald Chambers, including his most well known, My Utmost, though I have been aware of it.
Here is the quote:
“I feel I shall be buried for a time, hidden away in obscurity; then suddenly I shall flame out, do my work, and be gone.”
This quote gripped me, because, for one, I had never heard it before, and two, it reflected back feelings to me that I have felt, but had no words for. Do quotes sometimes do that to you? It's as if someone else is giving your feelings, private ones, a voice. Doesn't happen very often to me, but when it does, I mark it.
These guys who have gone before us in the Lord have an investment in us, just as we will have an investment in those who come behind us. Their lives make me want to be a good example, and are incredibly inspiring to me. I find that they help me maintain my motivation to keep going, to soldier on. Not that they are perfect reflections of the Lord, just as we are not. Every person battles their own humanity, weakness, frailty. At the same time, from history, we have many examples of those who have joined the ranks of overcomers. They call to us, through the works they have left behind. I want to encourage you to give some time to hear such voices.
Good word…>>>>