Devotion without Interruption

I have been reading the biography of Amy Carmichael. It's been a great way to bring in the new year. She had an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God that is so inspiring to me. Her deep and abiding connection to the King was not because she was a missionary or spent 53 years in India or saved hundreds of orphans. She served her whole life with a single-minded devotion to Jesus. That is how she developed a relationship that I long for. And that is my prayer as the 2010 gets underway.

This past week started out great. Then on Thursday, I was opening the mail and my heart sank with something that arrived. I looked up with devastation and said, "What do You want me to do with this?" I folded the letter, laid it in my bedroom and began to pray...I prayed all day until I began to feel guidance on how to react to the surprise in the mailbox. Later that evening, I took a punch to gut on an unrelated matter and have been continuing to pray through that as well.

My weeks are often filled with great joy and great challenges...sometimes the latter is overwhelming. And this is what makes me realize that my prayer for complete devotion to Jesus must be my only goal. I do not want to be distracted by what comes my way...I don't want my energies and emotions to get zapped while I focus on other things that are outside of His will for me.

May Amy's prayer be mine..."Lord, do Thou turn me all into love, and all my love into obedience, and let my obedience be without interruption."

Here are a few notable quotes from the book:

1. Whatever might blur the vision God had given her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt others to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate.

2. Take your slate to the foot of the cross and add up the figures there.

3. The saddest thing one meets is the nominal Christian.

4. He is burning out the dross, teaching me the meaning of fire, the burnt offering, the death of the self-part of me.

5. Truth once given form becomes imperishable, but let the edges of truth be blurred, and that pure form is very difficult to recover.

6. Nothing is worthwhile if the seed of eternity be not in it.