Choosing God First

My Utmost for His Highest is a daily Christian devotional that compiles the teachings and preaching of Oswald Chambers to the soldiers and students he mentored over the years. Chambers' wife Gertrude Hobbs published the book in 1917 shortly after Chambers' untimely death, compiling the daily devotions from her pages of shorthand notes. 

Consider this passage from the first week of July in My Utmost for His Highest:

Don't Calculate Without God

God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the things we have calculated on without taking Him into account. We get into circumstances which were not chosen by God, and suddenly we find we have been calculating without God; He has not entered in as a living factor. The one thing that keeps us from the possibility of worrying is bringing God in as the greatest factor in all our calculations. 

In our religion, it is customary to put God first, but we are apt to think it is an impertinence to put Him first in the practical issues of our lives. If we imagine we have to put on our Sunday moods before we come near to God, we will never come near Him. We must come as we are.

How calculating are you, excusing God from the minutiae rather than bringing Him into everything? Do you prefer to prepare before you spend time with the Lord, or are you bold enough to simply "come as you are"? 

What if you start this week with a visit to Metzler Park in Estacada, committing to come as you are to revel in the beauty of God's creation and witness the baptismal waters of Clear Creek?

God bless,

Jennie