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Discovery House Publishers
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Oswald Chambers was a man for all time. His was the mind of Christ and so his words are compelling because they reflect the thoughts of our Savior. I am not the first to say that no book outside the Bible has influenced me as much as My Utmost for His Highest. In David McCasland's book we have, at last, the story of this man's life and how, having honored God, God is now honoring him with the only fame that really matters.
User reviews
LibraryThing member lauranav
I find audio-books difficult, I lose focus and forget to pay attention. This book was a great audio-book, and it kept my attention. My argument this time is that I heard things I wanted to write down and meditate on but couldn’t given where I was and that the recording just kept going.
The book
Here are some of the main points I did capture. One of Oswald’s sayings was that he wanted to spend and be spent only for God. His work wasn’t just a job, it was his life and God was present in everything he did. Related to this was his belief that he should give to whoever asks. He knew that people would take advantage of him, but that was God’s to handle. If Oswald gave when he was asked, then God would provide for Oswald. And this is how it worked every single time.
After he married (into his 30’s) he and his wife often had no definite plan for the future, but they trusted that God would provide if they only followed His will. He preached around England and Scotland, then they opened a Bible College in London, and God always provided.
I learned quite a bit about his life, including his trips to the US and his time spent in Japan. Then when WWI broke out, he went to Egypt working with the YMCA providing places for the soldiers to eat, socialize, and (at Oswald’s camp at least) to pray and hear the Word spoken and preached.
One way he comforted coworkers and friends, especially while in Egypt during the war, was to not worry so about understanding God’s ways. To know that God is love, get deep in that love, and trust God. He felt is was important to know the character of God and work from there.
After Oswald’s death, the book continues with a very good description of the work his wife undertook to publish his talks and sermons from the Bible College, his traveling preaching time, and the time in Egypt. They were quite a couple and she continued his legacy even after he was gone.
I like a biography that covers the facts, the thoughts, the development of the person’s worldview, and how they lived out that worldview. This was a very satisfying biography about an inspiring man.
The book
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covers his birth, early years in Scotland, his time in London where he accepted Christ as his savior. Then the years when he struggled to understand what God would have him do. Oswald was 27 before he had a real purpose, but he was used by God even before that. I find this reassuring in a world where we should know what we want when we enter college at 18 and then do it well starting in our early 20’s. Oswald studied and worked but he spent much of his time and energy growing in his walk with God, seeking His will, and patiently waiting for guidance.Here are some of the main points I did capture. One of Oswald’s sayings was that he wanted to spend and be spent only for God. His work wasn’t just a job, it was his life and God was present in everything he did. Related to this was his belief that he should give to whoever asks. He knew that people would take advantage of him, but that was God’s to handle. If Oswald gave when he was asked, then God would provide for Oswald. And this is how it worked every single time.
After he married (into his 30’s) he and his wife often had no definite plan for the future, but they trusted that God would provide if they only followed His will. He preached around England and Scotland, then they opened a Bible College in London, and God always provided.
I learned quite a bit about his life, including his trips to the US and his time spent in Japan. Then when WWI broke out, he went to Egypt working with the YMCA providing places for the soldiers to eat, socialize, and (at Oswald’s camp at least) to pray and hear the Word spoken and preached.
One way he comforted coworkers and friends, especially while in Egypt during the war, was to not worry so about understanding God’s ways. To know that God is love, get deep in that love, and trust God. He felt is was important to know the character of God and work from there.
After Oswald’s death, the book continues with a very good description of the work his wife undertook to publish his talks and sermons from the Bible College, his traveling preaching time, and the time in Egypt. They were quite a couple and she continued his legacy even after he was gone.
I like a biography that covers the facts, the thoughts, the development of the person’s worldview, and how they lived out that worldview. This was a very satisfying biography about an inspiring man.
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LibraryThing member iankg
Oswald Chambers is usually known for his daily devotional "My Utmost for His Highest", the title of which is enough to put most 21st century people off without even opening it. Actually this, together with all but one of the many books published under his name, were actually published posthumously
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by his wife Biddy, from notes taken by her from Oswald's lectures and sermons. "Abandoned to God" is the story of Oswald and Biddy, and grips from the very beginning. Oswald Chambers was a refreshingly normal man, yet one who had a profound and very intimate relationship with God. His life is an inspiring one, full of faith, doubt, hope, and unswerving service to Jesus Christ. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jared_Runck
This volume has probably sat on my bookshelf since it was first published (almost 30 years ago now), long before “My Utmost for His Highest” was more to me that just the title of a classic devotional. I can no longer remember how I originally acquired it, though I have a hunch it may have been
Almost 10 years ago now, in what to this point is still one of the greatest personal trials I have ever faced, I picked up an updated version of “My Utmost for His Highest” almost on a whim and found in it insights of such uncommon power that it has become a part of my devotional exercises ever since. And, a decade on, its power has yet to fade.
Of course, this is not a review of Chambers’ classic devotional but of McCasland’s biography of its writer which I decided to (finally) read out of a mixture of what can only be described as interest, shame (at having left languishing unread for so long), and resolve (if I found “My Utmost” to be so impactful, it was only sensible to learn a bit more about its author).
For the purposes of full disclosure, over the years, I have picked up the general outline of Chambers’ life…his time studying art at the University of Edinburgh, the transition to studying for ministry at the Bible Training College, his work with the YMCA attachment to the British Army in Egypt…and, from that perspective, I learned little that surprised me, though McCasland did add a good bit of “color” to the outline I already possessed.
McCasland does the work of charting Chambers’ life admirably well. He quotes liberally from his letters, journals, sermons, and articles and includes comments and insights from those who knew him. It is quite clear that he sees Oswald Chambers as more than a just a “man of the times,” defined by his era (which seems to be the trend of contemporary biography). He paints Chambers as one who stands out from his context, going against the grain of an increasingly intellectualized and straitened British Christianity with his passionate view of complete surrender and sanctification. McCasland describes well an intensity and authenticity to Oswald Chambers that few I’ve met could match.
I think what McCasland’s work helped me do, more than anything, was to consider again the impact of some things that I already knew. As an example, McCasland rightly picks up on the significance of Chambers’ early aspirations to be a Christian artist (he’s very clear that Chambers considered this a divine calling); it is clear to me now that much of the imagistic power preserved in his writings reflects those same gifts and interests in a different register. Also, his work as a Bible college professor (“tutor” is, I believe, the more correct British academic designation) probably goes a long way toward explaining why his words resonate so with me.
Having said that, there were (obviously) SOME surprises along the way. For example, Chambers was remarkably well read, not just in literature, but in contemporary theology and psychology (!). In a 1907 article for “God’s Revivalist,” Chambers’ excoriated the lack of proper missionary preparation in incredibly blunt terms: “To ignore the vast and competent literature relative to every country under Heaven today and to go to work for God, living more or less a hand-to-mouth spiritual life is to be utterly unfitted and unable to rightly divide the word of truth. Missionary ignorance…has at its heart laziness or a mistaken notion that the Holy Ghost puts a premium on ignorance.”
Chambers’ view of holiness issued in the promotion of a robust Christianity that was unafraid of making real demands of its adherents. The biblical doctrine of holiness he described as “uncompromising and manly.” (Note: I picked up on this phrase because it echoes the “recovery of manhood” language that Jackson Lears’ traces in significant detail in his “Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920.”)
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, McCasland demonstrates the crucial role that Chambers’ wife, Gertrude (or “Biddy” as he called her) played in making him the household name he is today. He is unstinting in his praise of her remarkable talents (able to take dictation at the alarming rate of 250 words per minute!), her tireless efforts to collect, organize, and publish his work, and her role as every bit Oswald’s equal in passionate desire for the Kingdom of God. In case you didn’t know it, “My Utmost for His Highest” is, in every meaningful sense of the term, CO-authored by Oswald and Gertrude Chambers, though, in an act of striking humility, her name appears nowhere in that text.
For those of a more theological turn of mind (like me), McCasland’s work will probably seem a bit light. For all his quotations from Chambers’ writings, there is not much explanation of them. He chooses not to wrestle with Chambers’ understanding of holiness (a hotly contested issue in his day) nor his rejection of the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism. To be completely honest, it does “flatten” his portrait of Chambers and ends up not giving due credit to Chambers’ writings as works of serious theology, which they undoubtedly were. Chambers clearly had a definite and unique perspective on several fundamental Christian doctrines that deserve more consideration than McCasland chooses to give them.
One nice touch: McCasland includes Chambers’ poetry as a sort-of appendix to the book. Though most of it is of middling quality, it does provide a unique way to “get at” the essence of the man, Oswald Chambers, who was equal parts sensitive artist, impassioned believer, and resolute soldier. It is a fitting coda to a symphonic life.
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a gift. Almost 10 years ago now, in what to this point is still one of the greatest personal trials I have ever faced, I picked up an updated version of “My Utmost for His Highest” almost on a whim and found in it insights of such uncommon power that it has become a part of my devotional exercises ever since. And, a decade on, its power has yet to fade.
Of course, this is not a review of Chambers’ classic devotional but of McCasland’s biography of its writer which I decided to (finally) read out of a mixture of what can only be described as interest, shame (at having left languishing unread for so long), and resolve (if I found “My Utmost” to be so impactful, it was only sensible to learn a bit more about its author).
For the purposes of full disclosure, over the years, I have picked up the general outline of Chambers’ life…his time studying art at the University of Edinburgh, the transition to studying for ministry at the Bible Training College, his work with the YMCA attachment to the British Army in Egypt…and, from that perspective, I learned little that surprised me, though McCasland did add a good bit of “color” to the outline I already possessed.
McCasland does the work of charting Chambers’ life admirably well. He quotes liberally from his letters, journals, sermons, and articles and includes comments and insights from those who knew him. It is quite clear that he sees Oswald Chambers as more than a just a “man of the times,” defined by his era (which seems to be the trend of contemporary biography). He paints Chambers as one who stands out from his context, going against the grain of an increasingly intellectualized and straitened British Christianity with his passionate view of complete surrender and sanctification. McCasland describes well an intensity and authenticity to Oswald Chambers that few I’ve met could match.
I think what McCasland’s work helped me do, more than anything, was to consider again the impact of some things that I already knew. As an example, McCasland rightly picks up on the significance of Chambers’ early aspirations to be a Christian artist (he’s very clear that Chambers considered this a divine calling); it is clear to me now that much of the imagistic power preserved in his writings reflects those same gifts and interests in a different register. Also, his work as a Bible college professor (“tutor” is, I believe, the more correct British academic designation) probably goes a long way toward explaining why his words resonate so with me.
Having said that, there were (obviously) SOME surprises along the way. For example, Chambers was remarkably well read, not just in literature, but in contemporary theology and psychology (!). In a 1907 article for “God’s Revivalist,” Chambers’ excoriated the lack of proper missionary preparation in incredibly blunt terms: “To ignore the vast and competent literature relative to every country under Heaven today and to go to work for God, living more or less a hand-to-mouth spiritual life is to be utterly unfitted and unable to rightly divide the word of truth. Missionary ignorance…has at its heart laziness or a mistaken notion that the Holy Ghost puts a premium on ignorance.”
Chambers’ view of holiness issued in the promotion of a robust Christianity that was unafraid of making real demands of its adherents. The biblical doctrine of holiness he described as “uncompromising and manly.” (Note: I picked up on this phrase because it echoes the “recovery of manhood” language that Jackson Lears’ traces in significant detail in his “Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920.”)
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, McCasland demonstrates the crucial role that Chambers’ wife, Gertrude (or “Biddy” as he called her) played in making him the household name he is today. He is unstinting in his praise of her remarkable talents (able to take dictation at the alarming rate of 250 words per minute!), her tireless efforts to collect, organize, and publish his work, and her role as every bit Oswald’s equal in passionate desire for the Kingdom of God. In case you didn’t know it, “My Utmost for His Highest” is, in every meaningful sense of the term, CO-authored by Oswald and Gertrude Chambers, though, in an act of striking humility, her name appears nowhere in that text.
For those of a more theological turn of mind (like me), McCasland’s work will probably seem a bit light. For all his quotations from Chambers’ writings, there is not much explanation of them. He chooses not to wrestle with Chambers’ understanding of holiness (a hotly contested issue in his day) nor his rejection of the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism. To be completely honest, it does “flatten” his portrait of Chambers and ends up not giving due credit to Chambers’ writings as works of serious theology, which they undoubtedly were. Chambers clearly had a definite and unique perspective on several fundamental Christian doctrines that deserve more consideration than McCasland chooses to give them.
One nice touch: McCasland includes Chambers’ poetry as a sort-of appendix to the book. Though most of it is of middling quality, it does provide a unique way to “get at” the essence of the man, Oswald Chambers, who was equal parts sensitive artist, impassioned believer, and resolute soldier. It is a fitting coda to a symphonic life.
Show Less
Subjects
ISBN
9780929239750
Local notes
B Cha
Acc # 1410
Book
Acc # 1410
Book