“Your eyes saw my unformed substance.
In your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.”
Psalm 139:16
Reading in My Utmost for His Highest this morning, several of Oswald Chambers’ phrases stood out to me:
“If you will give God the rights to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you. God’s experiments always succeed.”
“In the life of a saint there is this amazing wellspring of original life all the time”
“The saint realizes that it is God Who engineers circumstances”
“Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as He is with you.”
It’s such a beautiful truth to be reminded of: my life is not following a pattern.
As I come to Jesus, and follow Jesus, and walk this path He leads me on, it doesn’t follow a mold – and it doesn’t set one. There are not precedents here, either to follow or establish. I have my God’s warnings and promises that He has given us through the Scriptures, but as I walk in His promises and obey His commands, life can look so many different ways as He fulfills His Word and completes His work in me.
How amazing it is to have the God who created all things so invested in my life. Creatively involved. Intricate in His details.
Oh, how He must love creating, leading, and making things new. How wise and powerful and all-knowing to be able to invest and design to this great extent. Because there are so many storylines, so many paths that cross, and so many details big and small that turn our gaze and the path that we walk, creating new interactions.
Our God really must love writing our stories – all fitting within His grand story of redemption – and being involved as it all unfolds. As He must have loved creating the world with all of its details, and the universe it’s a part of.
And how very great He must be, to be involved in all of it. All over the world. Every story, every piece. Our great God whose sovereignty is astounding. Especially when it comes with such personal, intimate care. He is not distracted from me. And He is not distracted by me. His attention is not pulled away from any part of His plan, and His plans are all-encompassing.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:24-28a).
He is great enough to orchestrate it all. To uphold the universe by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). And He is near enough to know my needs before I speak them, and to desire that I speak them. Near enough, personal enough to want to hear from me. To want to know me, and for me to know Him, in close relationship as I turn my heart and mind (with the strength He Himself provides) toward Him in faith, obedience, love, and praise.
Our great Creator is still creating. He is still unfolding our stories, establishing our steps, and drawing us to Himself to make us new. To make all things new. Let us draw near to Him – let us choose Him – that we would know the steadfast love and magnificent grace of the only One who is able to save us and make us whole.
And let us trust Him here, in the original stories that aren’t like anyone else’s. It might be confusing. It might be painful at times. But it is all filled with grace and guided by the hands that lovingly care for us in each moment. He has purposes here, for each one of us. Beautiful purposes that will shine with the brilliant glory and joy of His redemptive grace. He will not fail us. Because He never fails.
“A person’s steps are established by the LORD,
and He takes pleasure in his way.
Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed,
because the LORD supports him with His hand.”
Psalm 37:23-24 (CSB)
“The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.”
Psalm 145:15-19
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…For the body does not consist of one member but of many…But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”
1 Corinthians 12:12,14,18
“…We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
Ephesians 4:15b-16
“Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.”
Psalm 73:23-24
“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.”
Psalm 139:17-18
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?’
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Romans 11:33-36
In Pleasant Places 