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December 2011It
is time again for the director’s Christmas wish list for the coming
year. This year I am drawing my inspiration from one of Oswald
Chambers’ favorite exhortations. He often told his Bible students
and disciples, “Be absolutely His.” I recently finished reading Abandoned to God, the
biography of Oswald Chambers. I can’t seem to get his story off
my mind. He died at the young age of 43. He was an
accomplished artist, a Bible teacher and finally a chaplain to the
troops in Egypt during WWI until his death in 1917. While in
Egypt, he was in charge of the YMCA hut where soldiers went to relax.
Soldiers who never considered themselves religious were drawn to
his teaching and referred to Chambers as their “Spiritual Commanding
Officer.” Against strong warnings from the other officers,
Chambers decided to forgo the normal movies and concerts at the YMCA
hut. Instead he began nightly Bible classes. The
other officers said that the enlisted men would surely revolt. To the
surprise of everyone in the chain of command, the Bible classes were a
runaway success and the 300-seat tent was full to capacity most
evenings with soldiers hungry to hear the Word of God. He led many of
these men to Christ and many entered the ministry after the war.We
place a high value on effectiveness. We would love to have this
kind of influence in ministry. We certainly want to have an
impact in this country. We are eager to learn new methods and
strategies. Oswald Chambers believed that effectiveness in
ministry and even our own spiritual growth flowed not out of a new
method, but out of a desire to first and foremost “be absolutely
His.” He wrote,My
worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private
life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be
acceptable to Him, or is it something else, no matter how lofty it may
sound. Reading this biography led me to pick up and reread Chambers’ classic book, My Utmost for His Highest.
Every page pulsates with this desire to know God and to be
absolutely His—not in order to get something in return, not to be
recognized by others, but “absolutely His” for the pure delight of
pursuing what our heart truly longs for. That
is what I want for Christmas this year. I don’t want to stay
comfortably stagnant. There is so much more that God has reserved
in Christ for those who are His. He will lead us down paths this
year that will seem impossible to others around us and He will not be
stopped. This year as we yield anew the control of our lives to Him,
abandoning the world’s distractions, breaking free from our fears, we
will see what God had in mind when He first brought us here to Niger.
Let the words of Oswald Chambers be our watchword this coming
year—Be absolutely His.
Steve Schmidt
Director, SIM Niger
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