won't settle for anything less

You're probably getting tired of hearing from Oswald Chambers through our blog, but I am continually convinced that the Lord is using his works to speak directly to Matt and I right now.

We learned this past week that our field is losing yet another two missionaries the beginning of April. Watching four missionaries leave within two weeks of each other whenever we are so understaffed is difficult! Our missionary family is shrinking! In turn, Matt and I have realized how easy it is to slip into "Crisis Mode."

"What are we going to do? Who is going to do this, and this, and this? What about such-and-such? How is this all going to pan out? How is thing going to work?

Despite the fact that we are both assured that God is as very much in control as He was last week, last year, and the last century, this is an easy time to let that which is most important slip.

In comes "My Utmost for His Highest", March 17th.

We make it our aim to be well pleasing to Him. 2 Cor. 5:9

"It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; NOT making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only 'to be well pleasing to Him.'

"It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the RIGHT goal. Examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you.

"I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. 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 LESS, no matter how lofty it may sound?"

What a "non-human" way to think! That even wonderful things: winning souls, starting churches, having revivals, are indeed LESS compared to what should be our primary goal--to please Him!

Matt often says that our main mission and ministry here is NOT to teach, NOT to revolutionize the church, NOT to bring thousands to Christ, but simply to BE redeemed people among the unredeemed. To BE free amid slaves. To BE light against the darkness. To BE pleasing in His sight. It's all about that relationship, isn't it? It's all about the relationship we have, as Chambers says, NOT in public, but in private, with our Lord.

Just as the very most important thing in Lily's life will not be what things we gave her, where we lived, or what we taught her, but instead what we put into our RELATIONSHIP with her.

Pray with us for this current "crisis": for the lack of missionaries, the lack of funds, the lack of answers.

But most, please be praying that we might turn to Him: NOT first for help, money, and solutions, but simply because of our great love for the Father. Pray that our personal relationship with Him might blossom despite all else, and that we might CLING to our first priority: the pleasure of our God.