I love my Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest devotion. I learn something new about God and His grace every day. I haven't blogged/written in a while but I wrote these thoughts down when God revealed them to me. I wanted to share what was on my mind because I have been hearing the same message from God through different people these past few weeks. Other than my devotional book, my art professor and certain speakers in chapel have been speaking to my heart.
I've never used grapes as an analogy to describe the faith and lifestyle we should have but Chambers did. It kind of went along with the story of Jonah. In order to become wine grapes have to be crushed, not just by God but sometimes by other people if God so chooses. Fulfilling the call of God is a journey. How many times have you heard that? Doing what God wants isn't going to be on a huge sign in front of your face and recognizable for you to follow. It is a process through the storm and sometimes that process can be 'crushing'. Like Jonah, who from the outside looking in was set to die. If you think about it, what was the perspective of the others with Jonah during his journey? First of all, they threw him off the side of the boat. When is that ever a good idea? But it gets better. THEN they watched him get eaten by a whale! Of course if you were on that boat and watched all this happen you wouldn't doubt that Jonah was going to die. But God had other plans. God did this to Jonah on purpose. He was using Jonah even if Jonah decided to make his own plans for the time being. Jonah was within the storm, getting through it, and fulfilling his call but still stumbling.
God may choose to send you to the depths of the sea and then spend some time in the belly of a big fish. The purpose of Jonah's story is not that he told the Good News to the Ninevites. The purpose was about Jonah's journey within the storm. God's plan will be fulfilled even if we choose to rebel but that doesn't mean God won't choose to teach us something. Like that wonderful Casting Crowns song, we will praise Him in this storm. The call isn't the goal but getting there is what matters. We have to be broken in order for God to shape us. And grapes have to be ripe in order to be squeezed into delicious wine. If we are not ripe and get squeezed, well, then the wine is bitter.
1 Corinthians 4:7-12
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."
