Welcome to "Tuesday Morning"—good news for Christians everywhere, even when news nationally and internationally is not good. Thanks for opening and reading this current issue.

Recently I began reading a book entitled, Abandoned to God (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1993). It is a biography of Oswald Chambers, author of My Utmost for His Highest. I have owned a copy of Utmost for many years. In fact, I have owned multiple copies of the book and have recommended it enthusiastically to friends and family. I had no expectations whatsoever about what I would find in Abandoned until I saw the title of Chapter 7, "Dark Night of the Soul." The title caught my attention. At first I thought about what has been going on in the world's stock markets recently. Before I finished reading that chapter I knew I would have to feature it in this week's "Tuesday Morning" piece. It has nothing to do with sub-prime loans and stocks and bonds, but it has everything to do with spiritual empowerment in the life of believers—even in dark times.

Some would have us believe that the Christian life is meant to be a life of constant victory and joy. And if it isn't, it can be. All we need to do is send a seed gift to the talking head on television, and things will get better—in fact, many times better. Some teach that if there is a financial trajectory to the faith life, the trajectory is always upward. Or it should be. We want to believe it. Then Monday comes. And everything that is not nailed down comes loose. Our "dark night of the soul" has arrived.

Abandoned to God is the story of a man who, in his mid-twenties, was on a positive trajectory in every way except in his relationship with God. He was young, very intelligent, handsome, charismatic, and headed for success in any one of several career directions he could have chosen. When he preached, people responded. When he taught, young people listened. But he was very unhappy. About this time, a young woman in a local church accused Chambers of sexual misconduct. There was no truth to her story and Chambers was completely vindicated, but damage had been done. More than causing damage to his reputation, the false charges heightened his own feeling of being spiritually inadequate to live the Christian life. His "dark night of the soul" lasted for four years!

I have chosen the title of his biography, "Abandoned to God," as the title for this week's epistle. Open it when you are ready. Read it thoroughly. If God speaks to you personally about your own relationship with Him, follow the example of Oswald Chambers. Seek Him earnestly. Trust Him implicitly. Follow Him obediently. If Chambers' story is not your story, send this week's epistle to someone you know who is experiencing their own spiritual "dark night." This is a message of hope. Pass it on to someone who needs it.

Tom Barnard

A Senior Seeker
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“Abandoned to God”
Tom Barnard

The words of the title of this epistle are not mine. They make up the title of a biography of Oswald Chambers, author of the classic devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest. The words accurately describe a time in the life of Chambers when his spiritual “dark night of the soul” turned into day. Here is how Chambers described the beginning of the journey:

After I was born again as a lad I enjoyed the presence of Jesus Christ wonderfully, but years passed before I gave myself up thoroughly to His work. I was in Dunoon College as tutor of Philosophy when Dr. F. B. Meyer came and spoke about the Holy Spirit. I determined to have all that going, and went to my room and asked God simply and definitely for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever that meant.

The transformation he sought did not occur overnight. In fact, for four years he struggled to understand why his prayers for spiritual power were not answered. He continued to teach and preach with authority, but his soul was not at rest. He said,

God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence, and the sense of depravity, the vileness and bad-motivedness of my nature was terrific.

He shared his frustration with a close friend and mentor, John Cameron. Cameron prayed earnestly that Chambers would pay the price to become the obedient servant he wanted to be. “While many people in Dunoon thought he was a near-perfect saint, he knew the truth about himself. Within him lurked a frightening pride that was beyond his power to conquer” (p. 76).

Chambers continued to surrender things he felt were keeping him from spiritual victory, including the love of his life, Chrissie. Nothing seemed to work. His internal struggle intensified, building toward a crisis. Chambers wrote,

I see now that God was taking me by the light of the Holy Spirit and His Word through every ramification of my being. I was getting very desperate. I knew no one who had what I wanted; in fact, I did not know what I did want. But I knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a fraud (p. 82).

God led him to Luke 11:13: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Through a series of closely-related events orchestrated by God, Chambers embraced what he understood as total surrender to God. He admitted, “Either Christianity is a downright fraud, or I have not got hold of the right end of the stick.” Here is how he described his moment of decision:

Then and there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged committal on Luke 11:13. I had no vision of heaven or angels, I had nothing. I was as dry and empty as ever, no power or realization of God, no witness of the Holy Spirit…(I) went to Mr. MacGregor and told him what had happened. He said, “Don’t you remember claiming the Holy Spirit as a gift on the word of Jesus….This is the power from on high.” And like a flash something happened inside me, and I saw that I had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that I might say—Look what I have by putting my all on the altar. Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God. Love is the beginning, love is the middle and love is the end. After He comes in, all you see is “Jesus only, Jesus ever” (p. 83).

Oswald Chambers did not speak about this experience with self pride. In fact, he referred to it not as his having “arrived,” but “as a new beginning.” Because of it, the Christian world will never be the same.