Oswald Chambers’ Bible, of course, sourced the teachings that ended up in My Utmost for His Highest.
I don’t know, exactly, when I first got a copy.
The gift came from one of my husband’s Sunday school students..
But about 12 years ago I picked it up and started to use it as a daily devotional. It’s beautiful arranged that way–366 pages including a short verse and Chambers’ thoughts on what it means, with room to write things at the bottom.
I’ve confined myself to birthdays so I remember to pray or even send a card (usually late) on the appropriate day.
(You can also find each day’s devotion at www.utmost.org.)
Over the years I’ve taken Oswald’s wisdom and applied it to a life that rarely lives up to the calling of Jesus.
Oswald, of course, would expect that. You should, too.
Many know his famous reminder to be “broken bread and poured out wine.” It’s helpful to remember that on days when I feel broken, discouraged and as if I have little left to give.
Days like that, of course, are often when the Lord can use me best.
Changes in me.
My attitudes have changed through reading this devotional; I’m a better follower of Jesus Christ as a result. Each day I find myself nodding and challenged anew.
I then turn to my designated Bible readings and feel fit for service in God‘s Kingdom.
Usually after I have to confess some sin or realign my focus with my Redeemer’s call.
Often the Scripture passages mirror what Oswald has said, and I’m struck anew at how God engineers our circumstances to speak to our souls. It’s a heady thing.
During a terrible event when I was tormented my prayers had been pointless and wasted, I avoided God for several days.
When I finally returned to my discipline, I started with Oswald Chambers’ devotional. The headline for August 28 was “What’s the Good of Prayer?”
Oswald’s signature wisdom restored my faith:
It is not so true that “prayer changes things” as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man’s disposition.
God let his servant Oswald Chambers answer the questions tearing me apart. Click to Tweet
I love it when God does that.
Who was Oswald Chambers?
Chambers was born in the nineteenth century and died in 1917 at the age of 43.
He was consecrated to God in ways that sober and thrill. David McCasland wrote an excellent biography called Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God.
I’m working on a book that includes Oswald Chambers, and so recently I spent two days at Wheaton College’s Special Collection Library going through the Oswald Chambers papers donated by McCasland.
I read through archival boxes of letters, diaries, notes. I studied photos and handled “ephemera.” And then Archivist Keith Call brought out several startling items:
This is Biddy’s Chambers’ Bible, obviously well read and worn.
He also brought out the typewriter on which she transcribed Oswald’s words in My Utmost for His Highest.
I ran my fingers across the round keys and felt like I had brushed eternity–both by the knowledge Biddy and Oswald’s fingers had typed, but also recognizing the words that came through the black inked ribbon had affected so many people–including me.
Then Keith brought out a white box closed with Velcro. I opened it up to this:
I turned the thin paper and found lots of pages that looked like this:
This is Oswald Chambers’ Bible and the above are his notes on Pentecost.
This very book and me
As I held the worn leather volume in my two hands, I thought of how this very book, along with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had affected Oswald Chambers’ mind, life and ministry.
From this very volume, he had written the sermons, lectures and lessons which Biddy Chambers faithfully transcribed and then turned into thirty books, the most famous of which is My Utmost for His Highest.
My life had been changed for the better by, literally, this very Bible.
Both Biddy and Oswald would laugh at such a conceit–they knew, and I know very well, that it’s God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit who does the changing. Oswald, Biddy–and me, too–are only servants.
But it was exciting to hold Bibles both Oswald and Biddy loved and used.
My thanks to Wheaton College, Keith, Biddy, Oswald, and God.
Are you familiar with Oswald Chambers and My Utmost for His Highest? How have the devotionals affected you?
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Holding Oswald Chambers’ Bible in my hands. Click to Tweet
JaniceG says
I am so glad you got to do this! I have some leather journals that I bought when I found them on sale that are the devotions from My Utmost on one side with room for journaling on the other. Since I do lots of prayer journaling I bought several. I have gotten away from using them, since I have other journals, too, so I can send you one if you would like. Not sure if I can locate your address. Let me know if you’d like one. I really do appreciate his wriitngs but have spent recent years reading other things. I have been trying to declutter lately so I may have boxed these up but think I can locate them.
Blessings, Janice G
the real Aj says
That’s pretty cool Michelle. You held a piece of history in your hands. And the fact that you so obviously cherished the opportunity shows your appreciation of it. I’m happy God gave you this memory to cherish, and that you do. 🙂
samuelehall says
Michelle, I’ve been an Oswald Chambers fan since a friend gave me a copy of “Disciples Indeed” 42 years ago. A tremendous thinker and saint of the Lord. It’s truly remarkable that his wife recorded by hand most of his talks. I believe she was adept at shorthand or was a court stenographer. Can’t you just imagine what it would’ve been like to sit under his teaching at the YMCA camps in Egypt?
This quote (from “Disciples Indeed,” which you may have heard attributed to others: “Very few of us know what love of God is; we know what love of moral good is, and the curious thing is that that leads us away from God more quickly than does a terror of moral evil; ‘the good is ever the enemy of the best.'”
michelle says
Yes, Samuel, I’ve been quoting that verse over and over again in recent weeks as we struggle to find a new home. Which house do I choose? The good one? Or do I wait for the best one? It’s been difficult but as I’ve listened to Ken Boas’ teaching CD about My Utmost for His Highest, I keep coming back to, not yet.
It was a honor and a joy to hold those Bibles, to look through the photos, to imagine the lives. How wonderful that the words inspired by the Holy Spirit continue to transform lives–including feeble mine– nearly 100 years after Oswald Chambers died. It’s an honor to even think of writing about him and Biddy.
Judy Christie says
Was given a copy of My Utmost For His Highest as a going-away gift in 1989. I wasn’t “ready” to read it for a few years and now it’s always next to my bed. Many great passages. Love your blog post, Judy Christie