The Polar Star

Dear Faithful Praying Family & Friends,

OK; this is the Bonus Blog for today.  Be sure and read the post below this one!

Question:  Alert Reader Ron Day wondered, “What does Coram Deo mean?” 

Answer:  The inspiration for that phrase is from The Call:  Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, by Os Guinness.  Chapter Nine is entitled, The Audience of One.  Here are a few snippets, which I hope will whet your appetite for this outstanding book:

Most of us, whether we are aware of it or not, do things with an eye to the approval of some audience of other.  The question is not whether we have an audience but which audience we have.  This observation underscores another vital feature of the truth of calling:  A life lived listening to the decisive call of God is a life lived before one audience that trumps all others — the Audience of One. 

In Genesis, Abraham’s call is to live a life of trust in God as he journeys before God.  Usually God calls Abraham, but at one point he appears and says, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.”  Behind the voice of God is the eye of God and behind the eye the face and behind the face the heart.  To follow the call of God is therefore to live before the heart of God.  It is to live life Coram Deo [before the heart of God] and thus to shift our awareness of audiences to the point where only the last and highest–God–counts.  [P. 75].

Os Guinness continues P. 76:  The Puritans lived as if they had swallowed gyroscopes; we modern Christians live as if we have swallowed Gallup polls.  Or, as Martin Luther King wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, “in those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”  Leaders or panderers?  Gyroscope or Gallup poll?  Thermostat or thermometer?  Only those who practice the presence of the Audience of One can hope to attain the former and escape the latter.

And this is my [Margo’s] prayer:  O Triune God, teach me to be ‘inner-directed,’ not ‘other-directed.’ Give me courage and strength, that in following You,  I would steer by the Polar Star. 

Coram Deo,

Margo

P. S. For those who would like to read more:  Ron Day suggests What Does Coram Deo Mean? written by R C Sproul.  Go to Ligonier Ministries and enter that title in the “blog search.”