100 Years After His Death, Oswald Chambers and 'My Utmost for His Highest' are Still Impacting Lives

Oswald Chambers | Karen Campbell Media Excerpt | Updated: Nov 15, 2017

Every day tens of thousands of people read the same entry in My Utmost for His Highest by way of an app, an email, a website, or their own copy of the book. A college freshman breaks open the volume his grandparents gave him when he graduated high school. A businesswoman, commuting into the city, listens to Utmost on her phone. A young musician discusses the devotional with her mentor. A war reporter, embedded in an army unit, pulls Utmost from his inside flak jacket, where he keeps the book close to his heart. My Utmost for His Highest has been in print for nearly a hundred years. What accounts for the book’s continued appeal to people of all ages and stations in life? To attempt an answer to this question, one must look at individual stories, taken from the recently released Utmost Ongoing: Reflections on the Legacy of Oswald Chambers.

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Carol Kent

Carol Kent is an international speaker and best-selling author. She and her husband, Gene, run the ministry Speak Up for Hope, which seeks to encourage prisoners and their families.

“Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing—it makes no difference.” (April 18)

It was a season of sadness. Following two and a half years and seven postponements of my son’s trial, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole.2 Wallowing in grief and self-pity, I began spending less time in the Bible and even less time in prayer. My son, a US Naval Academy graduate, had done the unthinkable: he shot and killed his wife’s first husband. There could be no do-overs. There could be no happy ending.

I had always been quick to do what felt like the “big things” for God—speaking, writing books, or challenging participants at a leadership conference. That felt like important work that deserved my time. But what would it look like for me, the mother of a prisoner with a life sentence, to do “the smallest thing”?

My attitude and my outlook began to change. I came to understand that “the smallest thing” in my view is often “the largest thing” in God’s eyes. Before I left for prison visitation, I prayed, “Lord, help me to have a divine encounter with one of the families of inmates today.” As I approached the prison driveway, I began praying with authority, “Father, may your presence be felt all over the prison today—throughout the cells where the inmates live, in the prison chapel, in the chow hall, in the visitation room, and among the people waiting in line to see their fathers, husbands, and friends today.”

My circumstances didn’t change, but I slowly began to anticipate what God would do as He opened doors for me— doors to personal encounters with people in the long line outside the building, as well as inside the prison once we all made it through the intake process.

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2. Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Erickson Tada is founder and CEO of Joni and Friends, an organization that accelerates Christian outreach in the disability community

“What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process.” (July 28)

I had made the mistake of thinking every circumstance, incident, or issue was God’s way of preparing me for future ministry. The present moment didn’t count; it was merely an incidental link in a long chain of events leading toward some better thing on the horizon. Although every situation was one more thread in the overall embroidery, details that would fit—as the J. B. Phillips version of the Bible says— “into a pattern for good” (Romans 8:28), I never bothered to look for God’s good right now.

My eyes became wet when I read these words about God’s grace for right now: “It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God…If we realise that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.” The process is the end. No wonder I was so restless in my wheelchair, and always battling feelings of discontentment. Oswald Chambers’s words revealed my agitation and impatience with my quadriplegia. I didn’t like being in it, or learning from it, in the moment—instead, I kept longing for better times in the future.

Looking down at my paralyzed legs, I realized God wanted me to be patient now. Learn to accept hardship now. And discover a fresh dependency on and intimacy with my Savior now. Slowly, over time, the process of my growth in Christ became an end in itself. Even my prayers began to change. Jesus, I would pray, I don’t want to miss your blessings today. If I’m supposed to learn something special today, help me keep my eyes open. I discovered a delightful happiness in Jesus Christ, right now and for this moment. This was God’s purpose, even His goal for my life!

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3. Harold Myra

Harold Myra served as CEO of Christianity Today International for thirty-two years. Under his leadership, the organization grew from one magazine to a communications company with a dozen magazines, co-published books, and a major Internet ministry.

“What a splendid audacity a childlike child has.” (August 28)

The image with the strongest personal resonance, and one to which Utmost returns often, is that of children with their heavenly Father. We may carry large responsibilities and achieve good things, but above all, we must align ourselves with the Father’s will. When I’m tempted to see my work as more important than others’, I can smile at this from Chambers: “Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a Baby” (November 22). He contrasts our self-centeredness with “the robust, simple life of the child of God” (June 21).

The mysterious, often difficult, surprises of life keep coming, and Oswald Chambers says that an awareness of God at work in them gives us an “attitude of child-wonder” (March 29). It’s telling that Chambers, in his personal life, loved playing with children! In our anxieties and the pressures of life, how do we sense child-wonder? It starts with prayer, and as publisher of Christianity Today I was intrigued by this in Utmost: “Prayer does not fit us for the greater works; prayer is the greater work” (October 17). Prayer is where battles and victories are fought. That’s why our team at Christianity Today International, facing challenges that could have sunk the ministry, regularly prayed together. We saw each other as servants of God and of each other. We placed on each manager’s desk a sculpture of Jesus washing the feet of Peter.

Prayer helped us not to take ourselves too seriously. It was encouraging in the hallways to hear so much laughter coming from offices and at the coffee station. Children secure in the love of their Father can laugh. They can find joy and delight even in an anxious world.

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4. Blanca

Blanca is a Puerto Rican-born American Contemporary Christian musician. Until 2013, she was a member of Group 1 Crew. She released her debut solo studio album, Blanca, in 2015.

“If it is an impossibility, it is the thing we have to ask.” (February 29)

How many times have I second-guessed God and His promises? How many times have I tried to convince myself of something rather than just dive in with childlike faith? How many times have I allowed my personal failure to overshadow God’s character and cloud my confidence of Him as almighty?

I’ve dealt with fear and doubt for most of my life, so I think that’s why Chambers’s February 29 devotional hits me so directly and personally. It’s easy for me to err on the side of caution and common sense. Our flesh enjoys figuring things out, gathering up all the answers, and keeping uncomfortable things at a comfortable distance. We desire a map before we take the next step.

For many years, I mastered the art of protecting my heart from disappointment, all the while plastering a smile on my face to convince others that everything was just fine. I would rehearse an outcome in my head before I even asked God for His help. For so long I was reluctant to approach Him with boldness and confidence.

We tend to paint a portrait of God based on the encounters we have had with other people. The way I’ve communicated with Him proves this. Yet, in His infinite mercy, God doesn’t require us to have everything figured out before we tell Him our issues. That just isn’t how He works. I’m realizing more and more that God is in the business of completing impossibilities. Key word: completing. He doesn’t just attempt, He perfects.

5. Lasting Legacy

You may not agree with all of Oswald Chambers’s perspectives. The contributors to Utmost Ongoing themselves, if gathered into one room, might not agree on exactly how the Christian life should be lived. But this is the beauty of Christian fellowship—Jesus bound us to one another and asked us to love, despite our differences. And in all probability, when we look closely we’ll find more that unites us than divides us.

Publication date: November 15, 2017