His Will

These quotes from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest) hit on some ideas I have been thinking about in light of a discussion (I won't say debate) I was part of yesterday:

There is the call of the sea, the call of the mountains, the call of the great ice barriers, but these calls are only heard by the few. The call is the expression of the nature from which it comes, and we can only record the call if the same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not of our own... my affinities and personal temperament are not considered. (January 16)
The call of God is not a call to any particular service...service is the outcome of what is fitted to my nature... and is the echo of my identification with the nature of God... The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and I serve Him in the ordinary ways of life out of devotion to Him. (January 17)

The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him. It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings. Are we being more devoted to service than to Jesus Christ? (January 18)

We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses...Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him. (January 25)

All I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. (January 28)

The discussion yesterday concerned apathy and our duty to fight against it. Although I agree whole-heartedly that we should strive to fight this tendency (it has been an on-going struggle of mine), I disagreed with the means suggested. It seemed to me that the suggestions were all based on our own strength rather than looking to God for strength. It is good to strive for God, but (as mentioned in the quotes above) it is not our wills that should bear the load. Our own determination and plans will get us nowhere; when we try to fight for God on our own strength we are setting ourselves up for failure. We need to surrender our wills to Him and let Him use us whenever and wherever is best. Yes, we are to make plans but we cannot let our service for God become our highest goal. If we instead set our hopes in His will then if He tells us to change our well-thought out plans, we are more flexible since all is done in obedience to Him.

This is probably quite dis-jointed to read and may not make much sense outside of the context of the discussion but I wanted to write it out!