My Utmost Prayer

Patty Wysong has created a fun meme where once a week bloggers posted on the letter of the week. Check out the details here.   It is called A2Z: Take 2. A2Z as she challenges bloggers to write a post each week going through the alphabet.  Take 2 since this is the second time she has used this meme. Anyone can join in and you don’t have to always participate.

This fun meme has now progressed to the letter U and that leads me to think about the word:

UTMOST

Utmost is not a word I have thought about much. 

Utmost does not rank high on my vocabulary list.

Daily I read Oswald Chambers well known devotional, My Utmost of His Highest. I study this classic each year and continue to find gems I never noticed before or words that warm my heart in new ways.

Chambers coined the phrase, “My Utmost for His Highest” and used it in his writings and talks so much, when his wife compiled his thoughts into daily devotionals; she knew it had to be the title.

Utmost? What is my utmost? Why is this word calling me and causing me to let its meaning twirl on my tongue and meander through my heart?

Utmost means most extreme, greatest, the maximum, the highest degree, and to the best of one’s ability.

So today I ponder the word, utmost.

·      Loving God to the utmost  - like He love us – is living on the farthest fringes of our faith. We take that next step not knowing where the path leads. We rely on Him to lead us. We trust God to the utmost.

·      Utmost edges of our atmosphere hold little life giving oxygen. Utmost living leads us into unknown territory where we need to breath in God’s spirit for strength and health.

·      Often I take the easy way, the more comfortable path. I allow my habits of ‘being good” to become excuses and obstacles that stop the stretching my heart to be more like God. Chambers wrote, “The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best.”

·      Dare I pray this every morning?  

Lord may I live each day giving You my utmost.

All I can be for all You are, Lord.

 My all. 

My everything.

My utmost.

What does the word “utmost” bring to your heart?