Fingerprints

"The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is you" (Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, June 13th). I read this section in Utmost for His Highest yesterday morning before church and it clung with my thoughts all day yesterday. The words that stuck into my mind were "original life", "perpetually fresh" and "creative and original". God created us as original and unique human beings. He made each one of us distinct. I think sometimes as we live life we lose or forget that God designed us and that we are creatively and uniquely made by Him (and others are uniquely created as well!). Through the Holy Spirit and through entering into relationship with Christ we once again are reminded that God not only created us, but is continually creating something new in us. We can live with a freshness that comes from knowing God and His grace and His love.

Each one of our experiences with God is unique. How God may interact with me, may be different than he interacts with you. God called me to Him differently than He may have or will call you. My experience is uniquely my own. It is important that we don't push our experience or our "callings" (what we believe God has asked us to do) onto other people. We have to allow God to work without getting in the way. It doesn't mean that our lives aren't examples, it doesn't mean we don't speak when we should speak; it means that we let God work without getting in the way.

We also should be careful to judge. My experiences with God have almost always been in nature while, snowboarding in the mountains or running down West Cliff. However, the two most significant God experiences in my life occurred in my bedroom and the kitchen. They almost never occur inside a church building. For someone else they might have their moments in a worship service or in fellowship with friends. This doesn't negate the fact that Christ has called us to live lives that represent him well, but it might take some of us longer to get there or it might be a different experience that gets us to that point of realizing Jesus is the Son of God and that God is the only God and in him we find ourselves new, fresh, and bubbling with an "inner creativity". Yes, he call us to a different way of life and yes, that life may not always be easy or without hardship, but in that life you find a freedom that you never knew when you lived without Him.