Os Guinness & Oswald Chambers

"If we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence."

- Oswald Chambers

Wow, what a powerful thought. It is true that God calls to His children as their loving Father, but we must never forget the nature of such a Father - One who is Holy and Utterly Separate from us. Indeed, we must approach Him with fear and trembling, and live a life that pants after holiness, for just as He is holy, so we too must be holy in all we do. We must unshod our feet from the worldly shoes that are quick to sprint off the narrow road, and we must (however slowly) endeavor to tread the Way with bare feet. For, as one great saint put it, "better to stumble along the narrow way, than to run quick and sure out of it."

Another quote that cut me to the quick was from Os Guinness.

"To follow the call of God is therefore to live before the heart of God. It is to live life coram Deo (before the heart of God) and thus to shift our awareness of audiences to the point where only the last and highest - God - counts."

 - Os Guinness, The Call

This is something that I struggle with on a day-to-day basis. How I long to repeat St. Paul's words after him, "If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." (Gal. 1:10) But I find myself quite prone to living according to the affirmations of others, and worst of all, myself. May I ever seek to find my affirmation in Christ and by Christ - for it is only in Him that I am affirmed as an heir, and it is only because of Him that I am named a son.