DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS FROM PASTOR DOUG:

WHEN YOU SLIP
                                                           
            In his book, Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly frequently recognizes our imperfection and provides guidance for those who are likely to be overwhelmed by failure.
“The first days and weeks and months of offering total self to God are awkward and painful, but enormously rewarding.  Awkward, because it takes constant vigilance and effort and reassertions of the will, at the first level.  Painful, because our lapses are so frequent, the intervals when we forget Him so long.  Rewarding, because we have begun to live.  But these weeks and months and perhaps even years must be passed through before He gives us greater and easier stayedness upon Himself.
            “Lapses and forgettings are so frequent.  Our surroundings grow so exciting.  Our occupations are so exacting.  But when you catch yourself again, lose no time in self-recriminations, but breathe a silent prayer for forgiveness and begin again, just where you are.  Offer this broken worship up to Him and say: ‘This is what I am except Thou aid me.’  Admit no discouragement, but ever return quietly to Him and wait in His Presence.” (P. 39)
            Once having the vision, the second step to holy obedience is this: Begin where you are.  Obey now.  Use what little obedience you are capable of, even if it be like a grain of mustard seed.  Begin where you are.  Live this present moment, this present hour as you now sit in your seats, in utter, utter submission and openness toward Him.  Listen outwardly to these words, but within, behind the scenes, in the deeper levels of your lives where you are all alone with God the Loving Eternal One, keep up a silent prayer, ‘Open thou my life.  Guide my thoughts where I dare not let them go.  But Thou dares.  Thy will be done.’  Walk on the streets and chat with your friends.  But every moment behind the scenes be in prayer, offering yourselves in continuous obedience.  I find this internal continuous prayer life absolutely essential.  It can be carried on day and night, in the thick of business, in home and school.  Such prayer of submission can be so simple.  It is well to use a single sentence, repeated over and over and over again, such as this: ‘Be Thou my will.  Be Thou my will,’ or ‘I open all before Thee.  I open all before Thee.’ or ‘See earth through heaven.  See earth through heaven.’
            This hidden prayer life can pass, in time, beyond words and phrases into mere ejaculations, ‘My God, my God, my Holy One, my Love,’ or into the adoration of the Upanishad, ‘O Wonderful, O Wonderful, O Wonderful.’  Words may cease and one stands and walks and sits and lies in wordless attitudes of adoration and submission and rejoicing and exultation and glory.
            And the third step in holy obedience, or a counsel, is this: If you slip and stumble and forget God for an hour, and assert your old proud self, and rely upon your own clever wisdom, don’t spend too much time in anguished regrets and self accusations but begin again, just where you are.
            Yet a fourth consideration in holy obedience is this: Don’t grit your teeth and clench your fists and say, ‘I will!  I will!’  Relax.  Take hands off.  Submit yourself to God.  Learn to live in the passive voice--a hard saying for Americans--and let life be willed through you.  For ‘I will’ spells not obedience.
SOURCE: Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, 39, 60, 61.