“THE HANDWRITTEN PRAYER request was heartbreaking in its seeming impossibility: ‘Please pray – I have multiple sclerosis, weak muscles, trouble swallowing, increased pain, diminishing sight.’ The woman’s body was breaking down, and I could sense despair in her plea for intercession. But then came the hope – the strength that trumps the physical damage and degradation: ‘I know our blessed Saviour is in full control. His will is of utmost importance to me.’ This person may have needed my prayers, but I needed something she had: unabated confidence in God. She seemed to present a perfect portrait of the truth God taught Paul when he asked for relief from his difficulty – what he called his ‘thorn in the flesh.’”

After reading this short snippet from an article, I was mindful of how sometimes our problems are trivial in comparison to what others go through. I imagined myself in that woman’s predicament and was touched with her attitude and perspective concerning her affliction. Her words, “I know our blessed Saviour is in full control” were words written with conviction; she knew, personally, that God is sovereign overall, no matter how trying the circumstances.

It is so easy – so easy – to ‘rattle’ off our tongues that God is in control no matter what; we have our little ‘compartments’ with our various pet-doctrines, neatly packaged, ready to pull out at a moment’s debate. I’m all for theology and doctrine, and I thank God for raising and equipping leaders to systemize theology, to earnestly contend for the faith and to encapsulate sound doctrine throughout the body of Christ, but one of the most irritating sounds in the Christian life is to hear someone expound doctrine while detached from reality. There is something repudiating about it; but give me someone like this infirmed woman mentioned above – whose theology has not only shaped her mind but moulded her heart in having such confidence in God – then we are talking theology made reality.

So many of us can say, “God is sovereign and He can do what He likes” – and He can! But it’s nothing but a load of humbug unless they can say it when having experienced something that ‘bursts their bubble’ or some crisis that takes place, either through loss of employment, a loved one, sound health – even to losing one’s freedom, rights and independence through constant oppression – say it then with affirmation and you’ll have people’s attention, and the kind of fellowship that is real. Many say, “God is good all the time” wait for it… “all the time” but get them to say it when life is bitter and cruel, and more often than not you’ll hear a different story.

Anyone, with a bit of self-determination and pride, can study doctrine to learn all the terminology, but it doesn’t prove for one second that you’re spiritual. “Can God do what He likes in your life? Can He help Himself liberally to you? Can he take you and put you down? Can He introduce His schemes through you and never tell you the reason why? Can He make you a spectacle to man and angels, as He did Job, without giving you any explanation? Can He make you a wonder to yourself and to others, while He gives the implicit child-like understanding that somehow or other things are working out all right?” – Oswald Chambers. Can we? That is spirituality. Unless we are disciplined and tempered with God’s view of ourselves, we are naturally disposed to excess enthusiasm on the ‘mountain-tops’ and in crowds that, like Simon-Peter, it dissipates into thin air when it comes to the ‘crunch’ of testing, only to discover that we react quite the contrary to how we pictured ourselves in moments of ‘consecration’. It is who and what we are – not so much what we ‘believe’ – in the actualities that shows more quickly then ever where our loyalties lie – to self or Christ. Doctrine alone will not enlighten or spiritually advance us, but loyalty to Christ in all matters will, “One step in obedience is worth years of study, and will take us into the centre of God’s will for us” – Chambers.

One aspect I admire about Chambers, despite many theologians objecting to him because he was Arminian, is that he was real and who proved God in the midst of the deepest crisis. He was God’s man, just like with John Wesley and George Whitefield; God used them both, despite their doctrinal differences; both loved and obeyed God. We must always remember that God is infinitely bigger than our theology, and sometimes His methods will disturb our pet-creeds. Would we dismiss Tozer because he was influenced by the mystics, as opposed to Lloyd-Jones who was influenced more by the reformers and Puritans? Both believed the essentials – and the majority of the minors too, and both had the warmest respect for each other as brothers in the Lord. Tozer, as well as Dr Lloyd-Jones, had an enriching influence on 20^th century Christianity and continues to have impact within our era. God doesn’t care whether or not we’re Arminian or Calvinistic, it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to Him; what matters is our obedience and submissiveness to Him, no matter what hell may be throwing at us; dare we still trust Him when everything – and that means everything – brings you to your wits end, where no hope can be seen, not just for weeks or months – but years? How about then? Can we still say, “Lord, have Your way” and die to all our pursuits, without regrets, because we love Him? It will, at times, mean loss and tears. That is where our profession of Him is either proven or shown to be fake.

Can we say with that woman, in her desperate physical state, “His will is of utmost importance to me” – no matter how that may upset our life’s plans? Because, when all is reduced down to the imperatives, it’s not about how successful you are in a career, financially or church ministry; it’s despite all the chaos, upheaval and havoc of life’s ‘twists and turns’ – where things are other than smooth and plain-sailing – we can still embrace God’s will above all and with confident anticipation know His way is best. That is a person after God’s own heart, the greatest position any human can aspire to; that is where theology is made real and set ablaze with the light of His life.