Gracious Uncertainty

Dear Sisters,

One of the things I love about the devotional method that I use for my 20 minutes a day is that often the message is directly applicable to issues I am dealing with at that very moment.  One of my biggest struggles is the desire to control as many aspects of my life as possible – and my family’s as well!  I want to be certain about every outcome in any given situation.  And that is truly exhausting and stressful and takes a lot of the excitement out of life.  And it is not of God. 

So when I opened my Bible this morning, guess what I found…a copy of an Oswald Chambers message that I want to share with you in part called “Gracious Uncertainty”.  It was a refreshing read for me and I hope it will be for you as well.

“Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life – gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.  To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring.  This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation.  We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God.  As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises.  When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies.  That is not believing God – it is only believing our belief about Him.
 In Matthew 18:3 Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
 The spiritual life is the life of a child.  We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next.  If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled.  But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.  Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how he will come in – but you can be certain that He will come.  Remain faithful to Him.”

In Christ, 
Susan