All around us God sings a chorus. A
beautiful melody, a repeating message that is written for all but sang
individually in perfect time.
Take yesterday’s post called “Bullied.”
Though Frances Frangipane via Mary
Kemp, “What feels like an offense is really a
door to your destiny. Consider Joseph, he suffered attempted murder, betrayal,
slavery, imprisonment and abandonment, yet in all things he trusted God without
reacting to the injustice. The offense in the hands of our redeeming God
reveals where we are still controlled by our flesh. If you want to reach your
destiny, you must become Christlike in your crisis. In a word, you must become
unoffendable.”
Oswald Chambers via
me to Jim and back at me, “True
surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our
inner will — and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis
we will ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a
person’s will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until
that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought
– fought well and authentically and all the way through - it never needs to be
fought to that depth and agony again.”
I just simply love the beauty of God
inviting Mr. Class of 1982 to Iwo Jima, to light a fire under that subconscious
and the ungodly influence within my character that was causing misguided decision
and false emotion. How in His perfect timing, bring it to the surface to be
lovingly removed by the spiritual surgery of forgiveness, mercy, and surrender.
How many never hear the chorus God is
singing for them?
The Chorus that for me, in my moment,
joined by T Austin-Sparks. He began with Deuteronomy 8:2, “’Remember how the
Lord your God led you ALL THE WAY in the desert these FOURTY YEARS, to humble
you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart.’ … you see, it
(the desert) is intensely practical… By getting yourself out of the picture!
Self-will, self-interest, self-realization; that is the kingdom of Satan, and
God is not going to give you His kingdom on that ground…
This
is practical. I have to be quite sure that I am not in this, that some secret
ambition of mine, some motive of mine, is not at work. Oh, how subtle are our
hearts! You and I perhaps are ready to be utterly for the Lord. We mean well,
and we mean it thoroughly. We would sing really with our hearts and with our
voices at full strength, 'None of self, and all of Thee,' and we would mean it,
and there would be no uncertainty so far as we are concerned. And yet God knows
that we are all the time defeated in our very sincerity by secret motives, and
nothing but a test position can prove whether we actually mean it. So He brings
us to a test – to a prospect, and then a disappointment. How do we react? Is
our sorrow, our pain, for the Lord or for ourselves? Are we disappointed, or is
it really only the Lord for Whom we are concerned and we are not in it at all?
You see what I mean – a test situation to find out after all whether it is
'None of self, and all of Thee.' We can never discover it except in practical
ways along the line of very practical testings. The Lord knows it all right,
but it is not enough that He knows it. You see, in order for us to come in, we
have to come in intelligently and cooperatively. That is the point of every
test. The Lord could do a thing with a stroke, it could happen mechanically.
But we are in a moral world, and God acts towards man on moral ground. Man
has a will that constitutes him a morally responsible person, and so he must
exercise his will in cooperation with God.”
For me,
the chance encounter, the nightmares… nothing more than a merciful God singing
a chorus of invitation. An invitation to stop pandering to the ghosts of the
past, and to more fully cooperate with God in sweet surrender.
And then, as if the concert from heaven is never
going to stop I discover this song with Kari Jobe for the first time. The words
say:
When I waited so long, when my tears were my song
With my hope nearly gone You held me God
To believe in the face of the dry, weary place
When You felt far away You held me God
Oh, there is freedom in surrender, oh I know it
Your songs have never stopped
You've been singing, always singing over me
Your words are still enough
And You're singing, always singing over me
The chaos in the cause teaching me to see Lord
The beauty in the storm so I believe
When I see through Your eyes, through the testing of time
Every cloud silver lined 'cause You're with me
Oh, there is freedom in surrender, oh I know it
your songs have never stopped
You've been singing, always singing over me
Your words are still enough
And You're singing
Give me faith
Give me strength enough to wait
To stand in faith
And listen for, listen for Your melody
Your songs have never stopped
Your songs have never stopped
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