The Discipline of Dismay
And as they followed, they were afraid. Mark 10:32
The following is an excerpt from, ‘My Utmost For His Highest’ by Oswald Chambers
At the beginning we were sure we knew all about Jesus Christ, it was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is out in front and He looks strange. “Jesus went before them: and they were amazed.”
There is an aspect of Jesus that chills the heart of a disciple to the core and makes the whole spiritual life gasp for breath. This strange Being with His face set like a flint and His striding determination strikes terror into me. He is no longer Counselor and Comrade, He is taken up with a point of view I know nothing about, and I am amazed at Him. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me; I can no longer be familiar with Him. He is ahead of me and He never turns round; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off.
Jesus Christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him seem strange. When we see Him in this aspect we do not know Him, we do not recognize one feature of His life, and we do not know how to begin to follow Him. He is out in front, a Leader Who is very strange, and we have no comradeship with Him.
The discipline of dismay is an essential necessity in the life of discipleship. The danger is to get back to a little fire of our own and kindle enthusiasm at it (cf. Isaiah 50:10-11). When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come that following of Jesus which is an unspeakable joy.
Chambers, Oswald, My Utmost for His Highest, (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott) c1927.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Wow… Ive never heard this before…
It is an enigma to me, though, because I thought that God was all for coming to our level to deal with us, not allow us to be separated and estranged from him; isnt that why he died on the cross in the first place?
March 21st, 2009 at 9:15 pm
If we could relate to what Jesus had to do on the cross than it wasn’t devine. He seperated himself from the humanity He loved so much so that He could take all our sins upon Himself in an act that only He could do. As much as we say we can understand what He did, we can not. Thus He strides ahead of us, determined to accomplish what He came to do. There was nothing that would get between Him and His purpose, even though Satan tried in the Garden of Gethsemene to avert Him from the mission at hand. Satan heard Him when He prayed, Father take this cup away. That was the flesh and soul of a man but then He moves to deity by saying, but not my will, Yours be done.