absolutely His?

thinking out loud.....

i finished high school a year early so that i could get married to my sweetheart, get out from under my parents roof and make my own life apart from them and with him.  we got married, i worked a couple part time jobs until i got on with a program that basically paid me to attend "vocational school" to learn a trade so that i could get a job and a paycheck, which ended up being in the clerical/secretarial field....a decent living for a woman on the fast track to a paycheck, i suppose.

it never occurred to me that i could go to college, get a degree and find my vocation in life (or at least seek to find it as i went through the process of choosing a "major" and such, as i matriculated through the college years).  wow. i never realized i was living underneath such a low ceiling.  i had no idea of the big picture of life...................

i am attempting to read slowly and digest a book "the call", written by os guinness.  i am thinking about my constant need to make myself significant in this life.  to leave some sort of mark.  i want to leave a legacy.....and that desire is very strong in me.  and this need weaves its presence in and out of my life, my constant companion, sometimes its presence is more felt than others.  i think it must be a part of the human condition.  but every time it begins to consume & thus, frustrate, me, God sends His voice of truth and reason into the picture in some way or another...... to bring me back on track, i suppose.................

time and time again as i struggle i am brought back to the fact of something guinness addresses and oswald chambers underscores throughout his writings.  it is a truth that has been central to my life ever since i committed it to Jesus  Christ long years ago, but for some reason it is very hard to live out for me, i suppose because of my personality bent to serve..........and to leave that legacy of course....

"do we put our emphasis on service, or usefulness, or being productive in working for God - at His expense?  do we strive to prove our own significance?  to make a difference in the world? to carve our names in marble on the monuments of time?  the call of God blocks the path of all such deeply human tendencies.  we are not primarily called to do something or go somewhere; we are called to Someone.  we are not called first to special work but to God.  the key to answering the call is to be devoted to no one and to nothing above God Himself.  as chambers said, "the men and women our Lord sends out on His enterprises are the ordinary human stuff, plus dominating devotion to Himself wrought by the Holy Spirit."  the most frequent phrase in his writings:  "be absolutely His."