Is God in the Way?

I like reading my Bible and my Oswald. I like blogging and being alone with God. It's what I'm doing right this very minute. "Ouch!", then, when I read Oswald this morning! Sentences like, "Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve." And, "We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritually."

So here I am, in my pajamas,after my own ends (relaxing, taking a day off- You know, I have to take care of myself...be in charge of refreshing myself for the week to come!) But I'm of no earthly use to Jesus at all. I'm busy reading all about Him; I'm talking about Him; I'm thinking about Him. These things "emancipate me spiritually" But I'm doing nothing for or with Him!

Often, God will use a verse in Oswald to get me to read or hear something else He has for me. He did this when I turned to Romans 9:3 to read about Paul's desire to be "cut off for his brethren". As I read on, God drove home the point I had just taken to heart only moments before:

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:

Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can't get around.
But the stone is me! If you're looking for me,
you'll find me on the way, not in the way.

Romans 9:30-33 The Message

Sorry...I've gotta run!