Amy Carmichael
In 1903 Amy Carmichael's book
Things as They Are shocked many Englishmen and Americans into taking a closer
look at India. Unafraid of public criticism, Amy Carmichael had revealed to the
Western world the spiritual bondage of India as well as the suffering of
thousands under the supposedly "benign" religion of Hinduism. She raised a plea
for the little children who were being sold into lives of shame as slaves in
Hindu temples.
Never content to do things man's way when the Lord was showing her a better way,
Amy Carmichael was one of the first missionaries in India to adopt Indian dress.
Amid Christians who considered manual labor dishonorable, she cheerfully settled
down to doing her share of the work with the Dohnavur children. But the
qualities of Amy Carmichael that will stand out to the reader are her daring
faith, her overcoming spirit, and her tender love for the children she sought to
rescue. She was their beloved "Amma," or "Mother." Her family grew to almost a
thousand children before her death in 1951.
We hope that With Daring Faith will be a first step for our readers in
discovering the wealth of insight and challenge that missionary biographies can
offer. In Amy Carmichael's victories in India, we see the victory of the Lord
Jesus Christ over the powers of darkness.
http://www.librarything.com/work/259263
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Receiving one’s self in the fires of sorrow
What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. John 12:27-29 (R.V.).
My attitude as a saint to sorrow and difficulty is not to ask that they may be prevented, but to ask that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself in the fire of sorrow, He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to receive ourselves in its fires. If we try and evade sorrow, refuse to lay our account with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life; it is no use saying sorrow ought not to be. Sin and sorrow and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow burns up a great amount of shallowness, but it does not always make a man better. Suffering either gives me my self or it destroys my self. You cannot receive your self in success, you lose your head; you cannot receive your self in monotony, you grouse. The way to find your self is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be so is another matter, but that it is so is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people." Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest June 25
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Getting there
Where the sin and the sorrow cease, and the song and the saint commence. Come unto Me. Matthew 11:28.
Do I want to get there? I can now. The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by the words— “Come unto Me.” Not—‘Do this, or don’t do that’; but —“Come unto Me.” If I will come to Jesus my actual life will be brought into accordance with my real desires; I will actually cease from sin, and actually find the song of the Lord begin.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Watch the stubbornness of your heart, you will do anything rather than the one simple childlike thing—“Come unto Me.” If you want the actual experience of ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the touchstone. Watch how He used the word ‘Come.’ At the most unexpected moments there is the whisper of the Lord—“Come unto Me.” and you are drawn immediately. Personal contact with Jesus alters everything. Be stupid enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude of coming is that the will resolutely lets go of everything and deliberately commits all to Him.
“and I will give you rest,” i.e., I will stay you. Not—I will put you to bed and hold your hand and sing you to sleep; but—I will get you out of bed, out of the languor and exhaustion, out of the state of being half dead while you are alive; I will imbue you with the spirit of life, and you will be stayed by the perfection of vital activity. We get pathetic and talk about ‘suffering the will of the Lord!’ Where is the majestic vitality and might of the Son of God about that?
Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest June 11
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The dilemma of obedience
And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision. 1 Samuel 3:15.
God seldom speaks to us in startling ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, ‘I wonder if that is God’s voice?’ Isaiah said that the Lord spake to him “with a strong hand,” that is, by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence?
Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say, “Speak, Lord”; make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, “Speak, Lord.” Recall the time when God did speak to you. Have you forgotten what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it 1 Thess. 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and, like Jesus, we shall hear God all the time.
Shall I tell my ‘Eli’ what God has shown to me? That is where the dilemma of obedience comes in. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences—I must shield ‘Eli’, the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli; he had to decide that for himself. God’s call to you may hurt your ‘Eli’; but if you try to prevent the suffering in another life, it will prove an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own peril that you prevent the cutting off of the right hand or the plucking out of the eye.
Never ask the advice of another about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will nearly always side with Satan: “Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.”
Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest
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Is he really Lord?
. . . so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus. Acts 20:24.
Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do, and He says —“As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending you.” Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfilling of that ministry. Think of the satisfaction it will be to hear Jesus say—“Well done, good and faithful servant”; to know that you have done what He sent you to do. We have all to find our niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My sake.”
Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest
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September 30th
The commission of the call
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake. Col. 1:24.
We make calls out of our own spiritual consecration, but when we get right with God He brushes all these aside, and rivets us with a pain that is terrific to one thing we never dreamed of, and for one radiant, flashing moment we see what He is after, and we say— “Here am I, send me.”
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? You are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you, the wine would have been remarkably bitter. To be a sacramental personality means that the elements of the natural life are presenced by God as they are broken providentially in His service. We have to be adjusted to God before we can be broken bread in His hands. Keep right with God and let Him do what He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest September 30