For those who "Walk in White"

from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest:

DO YOU WALK IN WHITE?

"We were buried with Him...that just as Christ was raised from the dead...even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4).

No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a "white funeral"--the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a "white funeral," a death with only one resurrection--a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can defeat a life like this. It has oneness with God for only one purpose--to be a witness for Him.

Have you really come to your last days? You have often come to them in your mind, but have you really experienced them? You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement. Death means you stop being. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death. It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death. It is dying--being "baptized into His death" (Romans 6:3).

Have you had your own "white funeral," or are you piously deceiving your own soul? Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, "Yes, it was then, at my 'white funeral,' that I made an agreement with God."

"This is the will of God, your sanctification..." (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Once you truly realize this is God's will, you will enter into the process of sanctification as a natural response. Are you willing to experience that "white funeral" now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you.

"Hoo hoo hoo! Look who knows so much, heh?"

Spectators at the cross of Calvary imagined a dramatic escape or rescue as the proof of Jesus' kingship. God had an infinitely greater demonstration in mind. The Son would not manage to escape from the hands of His captors or from the nails and wood that held Him, nor would someone else come to His rescue. He would go through the last extremity of what it means to be human, and by that very means, by death itself, He would destroy the power of death. He would become, by His obedient dying, the "Death of Death" and "Hell's Destruction."

When we, in our "lesser miseries," plead for escape or rescue, what unimaginable "solutions" God has stored up for us! But often, in response to our pleadings, the word is Trust Me.

--from The Music of His Promises, by Elisabeth Elliot

Living a fast; when our food becomes God

From the author of the blog, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet: I was asked through a comment on an earlier post to write on fasting. While a topic very close to my heart, I have to admit it's intimidating to "put myself out there" in regards to it. For a few reasons: First, I had a very real struggle with eating and my weight through high school and college that even showed itself again twice afterward. I've since had deep healing in this area, but I want to handle this topic with kid gloves as I know there are readers who still walk where I've walked. To receive the real fruit of fasting, the line between fasting food and weight manipulation can't be crossed. (Fasting food is not for those who are actively struggling in this area. More on this at the end of the post.) Second, I've "failed" over and over again. I may have broken more fasts than I've completed. My point in sharing this is not because I believe God desires for fasting to be perfected and that, to write about fasting, I need to be good at it. But to the contrary, I want to carefully communicate that fasting produces a "success" that isn't measured by how it's executed. I've learned this through my many fasts broken a few days or hours early ... and God's response. ***************************** God met me at my weakest moment - in fact, I think that provided the entryway for our true introduction. I had a relationship with Him for years that was built primarily (though not solely) around a construct of success. God gave me "my best life now", I thought. He added to my impact.  And the accolades which came as a result of that impact only fueled my conception that life with God translated into promotion. Then, the naive prayers I prayed when life was good were answered. God slowly, but mercifully, began to unravel my success. He allowed trials and subsequent pain that didn't fit my paradigm of Christianity. He uniquely leveraged circumstances to draw out the fears and insecurities which my success had served to mask. He undid me. And then He wooed me. He met me. He engaged with my pain and applied the kind of healing that only a Father can. He bandaged my wounds, and in the meantime my cold heart started to thaw. For these years, I felt like I was living a fast. The things I relied upon, even just the momentary pleasures of life that remained through all those trials, were drained. My food became God. I needed Him to get through a day, even just an hour. Most mornings He was the only reason my feet hit the floor beside my bed and didn't stay nestled under the covers all day. In this place, I couldn't really understand people who were lamenting about going through a whole day and forgetting to acknowledge God. My circumstances - and a new awareness of real depravity in my heart - had left me leveled. I was faced with the reality, day in and day out, that I was nothing without Him. During that time, He began to reconstruct my understanding of Him in such a way that I actually relished my weakness - because it was the very thing, the only thing, that brought me into the safety of His fatherhood. Voluntary weakness. That's what fasting is. Putting ourselves in a position to need God, in a way that runs counter to our daily life's cravings. So my stage was set to seek more of this, when life wasn't so hard. Circumstances began to fall into a better place and my heart felt the benefits of real emotional healing. I found myself noting, like those others I couldn't understand before, my days passing without an encounter with God, much less a recognition of Him. I wanted the "glory days" back when my flesh was weak but my heart was alive. I wanted the personal touch of God laced through my day. Enter fasting. Periods of time, sometimes days, others weeks, others just hours, where I said "no" to what I craved and "yes" to the weakness that invites Jesus. The form didn't really matter - at times I had a grace from God to fast all but water, and other times I fasted things like sweets and meat or solid foods - it was my resulting weakness that provided the entryway. I wanted to put myself in a position where I recognized my gaping need for God. Resisting the little things that provided for my daily highlights, made it so that only God would (and could) be my highlight. And somewhere in the awkwardness of being cranky, depleted, uncomfortable and hungry, His Spirit inside of me begins to take the wheel. My flesh takes a backseat. Cognitively, it makes no sense. On the days I fast, it feels like my productivity plummets, but somehow the sweet power of God trumps my weakness. So much so that I want to do it again the next week. It is good and so bad, all at once. I dread fasting days, but love what comes of them. Things I've prayed for (for months, oftentimes) take wings just after those fasts. And the ugly parts of my flesh, the part I plead with God to remove, not surprisingly lose steam after prayer and fasting. I get a taste of stepping off the treadmill of cycle after cycle after cycle of the same struggles, the same fears, the same sins. Fasting, somehow, produces breakthrough. God brings freedom when I have no strength to implement a victory plan. His ways are just so counter to this material world. And yet, I don't really like fasting. But I love what it produces in me. And the key is not being a "good" fast-er. The kingdom of God doesn't advance solely through discipline, in my perspective, but the eye of the father is on the one - like me - who falls seven times but, yet again, gets up. Fasting takes the intangible truth that God is strong and we are weak and infuses it into our soul. It is utterly humbling because it reveals how much our lives depend on things that aren't God. Like chai tea lattes. And regular meals. To fast is to desperately need God to carry it through. I broke a fast once by scarfing down a family-sized bag of peanut M&M's. It had probably been a year at least since I had even one. But they tasted so good (for about 5 seconds until my empty stomach was ready to revolt). And God told me to press delete, and start over. No shame. Get back up. Fasting isn't about self-will, it's about putting yourself in a place to receive desire. So even "failure", just as long as you don't quit, can produce heart-level results. For those of you who share my history with eating struggles, but haven't yet had victory (or those of you who are pregnant or nursing moms or who have health conditions which preclude you from fasting), there many things to fast beyond food. Television. Internet. Email. Phone. Just the noise of life that can be a crutch. Those things that, if removed, allow us to acknowledge our emptiness. It is in weakness that He found me. The years where I got the props from other people for my ministry and my impact and received regular kudos for my faith paled in comparison to the dark nights where Jesus met me in the barren field. And the ground that was taken in my life during that time was so vast, that I refuse to wait for another set of circumstances before I position myself to receive more of Him like that. In weakness. God speaks into our void. Fasting creates the atmosphere where reliance on that Voice is the only option. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days. Luke 5:35

"We have already succeeded."

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

-William Cowper, 1774

"What About the R.O.U.S.?"

from the mildly annoying yet still profoundly true allegory, Hinds Feet on High Places:


"Here are the two guides which I promised," said the Shepherd quietly. "From now on until you are over the steep and difficult places, they will be your companions and helpers.... They are good teachers, indeed, I have few better.... This," said he, motioning toward the first of the silent figures, "is named Sorrow. And the other is her twin sister, Suffering."

"....I can't go with them," she gasped. "I can't! I can't! O my Lord Shepherd, why do you do this to me? How can I travel in their company? It is more than I can bear. You tell me that the mountain way itself is so steep and difficult that I cannot climb it alone. Then why, oh why, must you make Sorrow and Suffering my companions? Couldn't you have given Joy and Peace to go with me, to strengthen me and encourage me and help me on the difficult way?"

Let Sorrow do its work, send grief or pain;
Sweet are thy messengers, sweet their refrain.
If they but work in me, more love, O Christ, to thee,
More love to thee, more love to thee.

"Humiliations galore..."

"The pattern of Christ, as set before us in the New Testament, is in every case a pattern of humiliation, suffering, sacrifice." "In every case." This made me search for confirmation or otherwise of so strong a statement, though I knew that the writer (Westcott) would not have made it unless he had been sure that it was true. Perhaps the question comes, We have common work to do (gardening, sewing, cooking, and so on), what have these three great words, Humiliation, Suffering, Sacrifice, to do with us?

Humiliation: Do we like to be praised? Do we find it difficult if mistakes are shown? Which matters most to us--that the work should be well done or that people should know that we did that work? Is our "I" in the dust?

Suffering: When we stand for truth are we ever misunderstood? Then what do we do?

Sacrifice: What comes first in our choice--our Lord's wish or our own?

If we answer these questions honestly I think we shall understand how we can begin to learn to follow the pattern set by Christ our Lord. He must have begun to follow that pattern when, to the eyes of the village, He was just a boy in a carpenter's shop.

--from Edges of His Ways, by Amy Carmichael

"I hate waiting."

And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you...blessed are all they that wait for him." (Isa. 30:18.)

We must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful still, of God's waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us, will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give us unspeakable confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. Let us seek even now, at this moment, in the spirit of waiting on God, to find out something of what it means. He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His children. And you ask, "How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the help I seek, but waits on longer and longer?"

God is a wise husbandman, "who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it." He cannot gather the fruit till it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessings, is as needful. Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, till the fullness of time, ere He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands; He will avenge His elect speedily; He will make haste for our help, and not delay one hour too long.--Andrew Murray