More Lessons Learned from Covid-19: Leave Room For God's Surprises

God’s dates are not man’s. 

• God seems to pay no attention to my calendar; 
• He has a calendar of His own in which He suddenly surprises me in the midst of his days. 
• Leave room for God. 

I expect God only on special days, in particular meetings; 

• that is not God’s way. 
• He comes suddenly, at midnight or at noonday. 
• I learn to trace my history by the rare moments 
• in which I find out who I am and where I am tending. 

The history of my soul with God is frequently that of the passing of the hero. 

• Over and over again God removes my friends 
• in order to bring Himself in their place, 
• and that is where I faint and fail and get discouraged. 

Take it personally—

• “In the year that the one who stood for God to me died”—
• “I gave up everything?” 
• “I became ill?” 
• or—“I saw also the Lord”?

My vision of God depends upon the state of my character. 

• Character determines revelation. 
• Before I can say “I saw also the Lord” 
• there must be something corresponding to God in my character. 

Until I am born again and enter into the Kingdom of God 

• I see only along the line of my prejudices; 
• I need the surgical operation of external events and an internal purification. 
• It must be God first, God second and God third, 
• until my life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any account. 

“In all the world there is none but thee, my God, there is none but thee.” 

• Let God see that I am willing to live up to the vision; 
• keep paying the price. 
• “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision,” says the Apostle Paul. 
• Am I obeying the vision, 
• or only beginning to dole out the price of it?

Adapted Excerpt From

Notes on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel

Oswald Chambers