Fiend or Saint?

I'm still reading the book If Yee Shall Ask. I suppose it will take me a lifetime to digest all that's inside of the mere 110 page book! I've been reading and re-reading chapter 6 "Now this explains it" all weekend. It is enormously rich and I want to make sure I totally comprehend all that this chapter contains.

The Lord has really been convicting me, "Am I deeply longing, through prayer, for a child OR because I long for a child, am I deeply longing through prayer to know the very Giver of life?" Meaning, am I more consumed with the answer to my prayers rather than being consumed with knowing Christ better, more fully, to where we are one as He and the Father are one (John 17)? Is His grace really enough? Am I too focused on future blessings to not appreciate God's faithfulness in the past?

"God is not concerned about your aims and mine. He does not say, 'Do you want to go through this bereavement, this upset?' He allows these things for His own purpose. We may say what we like, but God does allow the devil , He does allow sin, He does allow bad men to triumph and tyrants to rule, and these things either make us fiends or they make us saints, it depends entirely on the relationship we are in towards God. ... The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women, or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent on our way. We are either getting more like our Father in heaven, or we are getting more mean and intensely selfish. How are behaving ourselves in our circumstances? Do we understand the purpose of our life as never before? God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God, and that is declared in John 17, 'That they may be one, even as We are one.' Am I as close to Jesus as that? God will not leave me alone until I am. God has one prayer of Jesus Christ. It does not matter how imperfect or immature a disciple my be, if he will hang in, that prayer will be answered."

Friends, I have to admit I desperately want to discern the mind of God -- especially now. But I often loose focus on the fact that my life is not about me, but about God's glory. His purpose, not mine. Just like the verse in Job, "Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" I have to continually keep myself in check with this verse.

I regret to say that I am more prone to being intensely selfish than being more like God. But why? Who knows. As a new creation in Christ, I have the ability, through the Holy Spirit within me, to take on the very nature of God. But isn't great to know the Jesus, even this very minute, is interceding for us to the Father that we might be one as They are one!! I love that! And just like Oswald Chambers says, "it doesn't matter how imperfect or immature a disciple my be, if he will just hang in there, that prayer will be answered." Praise the Lord! I look forward to that day!!

'Oh Lord, unto Thee do I look up. Enlighten me, cause me to be radiant with Thy countenance. I praise Thee for Thy grace and for seeing a little of The marvellous doings; enable me more and more to manifest the life hid with Christ in God.' O. Chambers