“We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not.”

The following are some pieces of My Utmost for His Highest regarding the pursuit of God’s purposes, which might make Mr. Warren mad.

August 3
‘Naturally, our ambitions are our own; in the Christian life we have no aim of our own. …We are not taken up into conscious agreement with God’s purpose, we are taken up into god’s purpose without any consciousness at all. We have no conception of what God is aiming at, and as we go on it gets more and more vague. God’s aim looks like missing the mark because we are too short-sighted to see what He is aiming at. At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is–“I am meant to go here or there,” “God has called me to do this special work”; and we go and do the thing, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God.’

August 4
‘He can do nothing with the man who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not out for our own cause at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause. We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him whatever happens. We must never allow anything to injure our relationship with God; if it does get injured we must take time and get it put right. The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is constantly assailed.’

August 5
‘It cannot be stated what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes…. If we are in communion with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say–Now why did God allow this or that? Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.” A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God.’

Amen, Mr. Chambers. When I try to determine what God wants from me, it almost inevitably becomes an attempt to control my own life (in a nice Christian way). It is the hardest thing for me to quit grabbing for the road map and just let the Spirit of Christ be my guide. I have no say in my direction, I can’t even plan or prepare myself. But I must trust that the Lord will both communicate to me when I must turn or speed up or slow, and also prepare me adequately to pass through the thing into which he thus leads me.

The Christian life has no purpose, so to speak.

We are not driven by goals, we are not driven to any foreseeable end. We have only a great Means to whatever ends He wills. And we know that His ultimate end is simply Himself. Humble, doting dependence is our place. We cling to the Lord’s leg like a tenacious toddler, and he does the walking.

I must live a Spirit-driven life; and the Spirit has His purposes.