Oswald Chambers: Total Surrender (Part 2)
Joy Comes in the Morning
Despite the intensity of the struggle, Oswald Chambers persevered.
He “renounced his ambitions in art and now cut the cords of his relationship with Chrissie [his girlfriend of many years]. If there was anything else he loved ahead of God, he was ready to place it on the altar as well.”
Chambers desperately sought for more of the power and presence of God. Instead he became more aware of the darkness and sin within. “He could pluck out his offending eye and cut off his right hand, but he could not escape the plague of his own heart.”
Even as he passed through the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord provided a mentor and friend. Duncan MacGregor, the president of Dunoon College where Chambers was a student, understood that the struggle within Oswald was God’s work. MacGregor knew he could do little to directly comfort his beloved student. But his encouragement and example deeply impacted Chambers.
“I never knew him in a controversy in my life,” Chambers reminisced. “He always let the other man have it all his way. I have known him to be defrauded over and over again; but I never knew him to be defrauded without knowing it.” In MacGregor, Chambers saw a man who lived what he preached.
This brings us to the heart of Chamber’s struggle. It is all too tempting to seek God for what He can do for us. But the call to follow is a call to die.
An excerpt from My Utmost for His Highest seems to reference Chamber’s own understanding of what God was doing in his life at this time:
Our motive for surrender should not be for any personal gain at all. We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself. It is like saying, “No. Lord, I don’t want You; I want myself. But I do want You to clean me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I want to be on display in Your showcase so I can say, ‘This is what God has done for me.'”
Gaining heaven, being delivered from sin, and being made useful to God are things that should never even be a consideration in real surrender. Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.
Chambers is not saying we shouldn’t desire deliverance from sin or seek to live a life characterized by holiness. He is referring to consecration. God not only wants to save us; His ultimate desire is that we intimately know Him (John 17:3).
After four long years, however, Chambers found the peace and rest that had so long eluded him.
“And like a flash something happened inside me, and I saw that I had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that I might say–look what I have by putting my all on the altar. Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God…After He comes in, all you see is ‘Jesus only, Jesus ever.'”
All quotes, except noted, are taken from Abandoned to God by David McCasland
