Learning to Live “At Home”

By Amy Carmichael, God's faithful missionary to India.

From her book, Edges of His Ways, page 160.

"You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance."

Psalm 32:7

I think distractions in prayer are often because we have let ourselves wander too far from the things that matter most. And so we slip into an easily interrupted, easily distracted frame of mind.

 

We need to live more at home!

 

“In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). This means, simply, God is our home.

 

Home of my heart, lest I forget
My redemption’s cost to Thee,
Let my earliest thought be set
Upon Thy Calvary.

 

Do you see what I mean? These words, which center my attention on what matters most, speak of something that I cannot drop out of my day without great loss to me.

 

I know without question that an earnest “look” at Calvary does more to help our life of prayer than we imagine:

"So shall the sayings of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be pleasing continually before Thee, 0 Lord my helper and my Redeemer." (Psalm 19:14, Septuagint)

I pray Thee hush the hurrying eager longing

I pray Thee soothe the pangs of keen desire.

See in my quiet places wishes thronging,

Forbid them, Lord, purge, though it be with fire.

 

And work in me to will and do Thy pleasure.

Let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,

Tarry content my Wellbeloved's leisure,

At last, at last, even as a weaned child.

 

See other poems by Amy: No Scar? and Flame Of God

 

Back in the 1920s, Amy rescued hundreds of orphaned children -- especially little girls that would be dedicated to Hindu gods for use in sexual temple rituals. By God's wonderful grace, some had miraculously escaped from such pagan slavery and were led to the Irish "mother" who lovingly cared for each child God sent her.

 

In 1931 she prayed, “God, please do with me whatever you want. Do anything that will help me to serve you better.”

That same day, she fell, suffering fractures that would cripple her for the rest of her life.
 

Not one to be discouraged or bitter when faced with pain or persecution, Amy now had the opportunity to demonstrate God's faithfulness before a much larger "host" of witnesses. While her growing children had continual freedom to enter her bedroom and share their hearts with their beloved "mother," she now had the quiet times that allowed her to write books, poems, and letters that were translated and shared around the world. "Great is Thy faithfulness," O Lord!

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross..."  Hebrews 12:1-2