Three Times November 22, 2014

Shallow and Profound 

  Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 KJV

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the profound. It is not your devotion to God that makes you refuse to be shallow, but your wish to impress other people with the fact that you are not shallow, which is a sure sign that you are a spiritual prig. Be careful of the production of contempt in yourself, it always comes along this line, and causes you to go about as a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than you are.

Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a Baby. To be shallow is not a sign of being wicked, nor is shallowness a sign that there are no deeps; the ocean has a shore. The shallow amenities of life, eating and drinking, walking and talking, are all ordained by God. These are the things in which Our Lord lived. He lived in them as the Son of God, and He said that “the disciple is not above his Master.”

Our safeguard is in the shallow things. We have to live the surface commonsense life in a commonsense way; when the deeper things come, God gives them to us apart from the shallow concerns. Never show the deeps to anyone but God. We are so abominably serious, so desperately interested in our own characters, that we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Determinedly take no one seriously but God, and the first person you find you have to leave severely alone as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.

Chambers, Oswald (2011-05-01). My Utmost for His Highest, Classic Edition (pp. 242-243). Discovery House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

I have just read Mr. Chambers November 22 entry for the third time and am still astounded at how God orchestrates even the small details of my life such as the perfect excerpt from a decades old book at an exact time in my life.

Just yesterday I was lamenting to dad about the fact there was not vehicle at Ridgecrest to allow for deep, professorial exchange of spiritual truths, Biblical revelations, and God-inspired thinkings.  I had envisioned an evening of dog-eared Bibles, spirited discussion, stale coffee in Styrofoam cups littering a table sanctified by the conversation and revelation of the greatest Biblical minds at Ridgecrest.  And, of course, I would be right in the thick of things.

Today's reading reminded me it is that type of thinking that creates "prigs".  Sunday school is too shallow for me.  Pastor Chad does not challenge my thinking.  My gifts are far too refined to teach 12-year-old children.  How arrogant.  How prideful.  How incorrect.

God is still working on my shallows.  Chambers points out that Christ lived the "shallow amenities of life".  His mealtime conversation was kind.  His carpentry bids were fair and honest.  He paid taxes and attended family functions.  Jesus Christ, God incarnate, lived "the surface commonsense life in a commonsense way".

Allowing God to deepen our relationship with and understanding of Him is certainly an admirable goal, perhaps even required, of Christians.  However, this cannot outshine and override the importance of behaving "like Christians in the shallow concerns of life".