July 28: After Obedience -- What?

As I mentioned yesterday, I've chosen to set the tone for the year by starting with Oswald's devotional for July 28, but I will stick to the calendar beginning tomorrow.

Part of me wants to invite you to stand back and admire this entry -- like a great painting -- and part of me advises tearing it apart in a line-by-line exegetical approach. I'm going to ignore both parts and dive into something more experiential, but I can't resist quoting a few lines: "What we call the process, God calls the end. . . His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God."

His purpose is that I depend on him and on his power now. Sets his sights rather low, doesn't he? For a good portion of my adult life, I have seen Christianity as a sort of divine self-improvement plan, praying that God would make me the woman he wanted me to be. Nothing wrong with the prayer itself; but what I really meant was "make me the woman I want to be."

The ideal Barbara. Let me introduce you. She's much like the Proverbs 31 woman -- a value above rubies to her husband, honored by her children. She's a savvy businesswoman, managing the home's finances and bringing in money while never neglecting the critical relationships of her life. The daily responsibilities of home -- laundry, dishes, cleaning toilets -- she handles so easily as to make them inconsequential. She decorates just enough to make a warm, inviting, stimulating home environment but never enough to be seen as "house proud." She's beautiful but never remotely concerned with appearance. She stays in shape without wasting the family's valuable resources on gyms, diet plans, and exercise equipment. She walks, makes great meals (both healthy and delicious), loves sex, teaches her children at home and motivates them toward service by her own fine example of visiting the elderly and volunteering at the rescue mission. She's well read, a great friend and listener (never too busy to listen), and of course, she walks with God daily. Oh, and she has an incredibly green thumb. Everything she touches blossoms and bears fruit.

I seldom think of the ideal Barbara as a whole entity. The standards are more like individual competitions where I look around at all the other women who seem to be winning. All pulled together, I can see the ridiculousness of her, but she still sings a sweet siren song. I long to be admired, to be worthy of admiration. The ideal Barbara is my idea of success. Oswald says, "We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite." The opposite?

The opposite of an ideal Barbara is what? The real Barbara, I guess. The ideal Barbara walks with God "of course," but there is no "of course" for the real Barbara. And God's end -- that I depend on him and his power now -- becomes a moment by moment choice. Something like a relationship.

"God's end (and my ultimate end for this blog) is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now."

Barbara