God's Standard in the Common Days

Let me revise in my mind 

• silences in prayer, in praise, or for the Truth, 
• when I was so greedy for my own sensitiveness 
• that I would not speak a word which might have saved a soul from a terrible blunder.

Christianity makes no allowance for heroic moods.  

• It is easy to feel heroic in an armchair, when everything goes well, 
• but Christianity deals with God's standard in the common days 
• when I am out of my armchair, 
• and when things are not going well.

Fearless devotion to Jesus Christ ought to mark me today, 

• but more often it is devotion to my set that marks me.  
• I am more concerned about being in agreement with Christians 
• than about being in agreement with God.

I would never know that my spirit was wrong 

• unless Jesus rebuked it, 
• because it is so emphatically right according to my reason (Luke 9:55).  
• The one thing to mark is the effect on my conscience - 
• does my spirit bear the mark of native self-assertiveness 
• or of disciplined self-conquest?

Adapted Excerpt From Run Today's Race by Oswald Chambers