Magnificent Prayer #340
Magnificent Prayer #340
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.
Hebrews 11:39
[Throughout Magnificent Prayer, one of the names you’ve seen frequently is that of Oswald Chambers. Of all the prominent Christians I’ve read about, Chambers alone has the unique situation of being used by God far more after his death than when he was alive. He died suddenly at the age of forty-three in Egypt where he was ministering to British troops. Later, his best writings were edited into books, the most notable of which has been the classic daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. The following entries from Chambers’s journal give us a peek at the man who would die before he saw what God would do with him.]
Portrush, Dec. 5, 1908. The great power and groan of the mighty sea seems to awaken that longing loneliness of the prophet about me for God. I am hungry with a vast desire for Him. As I go about for Him other lives seem to me to get clearer and clearer, but I find I dare not look to anyone to understand mine.
This is not pride, but the call is on me, intolerably strong at times. I am full of joy always, but a tremendous sorrow seems to be interwoven with it all. I seem to hear Him, but still I am sense and ark to His meaning. I wish He would take me into His counsel or let me live on the lower level. I am just sensitive enough to His Spirit to know that we are on the eve of new things, not the revival that every one seems to be talking about, that does not appeal to me. Nor is it the Second Coming, I know He is coming again, and coming again soon. But there is something He wants me to see and know, and I seem stupid. I can feel intuitively the Spirit of God striving with me.
Jan. 8, 1909. It came so clearly to me that in all ventures for God I had to go in faith, and now I do the same. It will be a great and joyful thing to see how God will open up the way. I never see my way, I know God Who guides so I fear nothing. I have never far-seeing plans, only confident trust.
OSWALD CHAMBERS
Pray About It: There is much to be said for planning ahead under God’s direction. But sometimes God directs otherwise. A young Oswald Chambers had a call on his life. Yet it was an indistinct call that drove him to repeatedly ask God to let him know what that call was to mean.
And then in the January entry in his journal, Oswald says that in all ventures for God, he had to go in faith. He anticipated only that God would open up a way in response to his prayers.
Perhaps the reason that God didn’t share His plan with Oswald or give him far-seeing plans was that Oswald would die soon. And yet, incredibly, God’s plan for the young missionary was extremely far-reaching. Nearly a century later, Christians around the world are daily reading the best-selling devotional book of all time, compiled after his death by his wife, Biddy. That book is My Utmost for His Highest and it was the posthumous answer to Oswald’s prayer. God has used Oswald Chambers far, far more after his death in ways he could never have imagined.
It was good that Oswald Chambers came to a place of trust that God would answer his prayers and use him. It is good when we do the same.
One life may be of incalculable use to God: and yours may be that life.
OSWALD CHAMBERS
From the book
