My Utmost: A Devotional Memoir

by Macy Halford

Raised as an Evangelical, Macy Halford eventually left Dallas for college and a career in New York City, where she found her life and beliefs evolving in a more secular direction. Yet every day she continued to read My Utmost for His Highest , a classic Christian text beloved by millions of Evangelicals. Eager to understand the book’s unique ability to bridge her two worlds, she quit her job at The New Yorker and began to look more deeply into the background of the devotional and its author, Scottish preacher Oswald Chambers. As Halford wrestles with what Chambers believed and why his book is so important to her, she gives us a captivating and candid meditation on what it means to be a Christian, a reader, and a seeker in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Religion, Inspirational, Christian, Christian Living, Theology

368 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2017

Reviews

[Katie - Girl About Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review, and many more, are available on my blog Girl About Library!

As soon as I read the synopsis for "My Utmost" I knew I wanted to read it. I instantly felt a connection with the author Macy Halford, a former book blogger for "The New Yorker". Besides book blogging, Macy is also from Dallas, Texas, a hop- skip and jump from where I currently live. I knew her memoir would resonate with me - and I was right. I was surprised though, by just how much I would be able to relate to, and be inspired by, her story.
Are you familiar with "My Utmost" by Oswald Chambers? If your answer is no, you have company- because neither was I.

I'm Catholic, and had never heard of the daily devotional beloved by millions of Evangelical Christians. However, while carrying Macy's book around my corner of Texas, multiple people stopped me to comment, expressing their interest in Oswald and this daily devotional. I am constantly reading, which means carrying books around all of the time - and this almost never happens. So after several of those conversations, I jumped on Amazon to order "My Utmost"- clearly it was popular and had made a significant impact on many people. I was surprised by the book when it arrived - Oswald's book of daily devotionals, "My Utmost for His Highest" is an intensely difficult read. Oswald's language isn't easy to follow, and I typically have to read each day's message two or three times before anything cohesive appears to me. Certainly not what I expected at all from a book of which so many people are familiar and love.

Reading Macy Halford's book was an excellent partner to starting Oswald's daily devotional. "My Utmost A Devotional Memoir" includes many personal narratives of Macy's, but it is also includes an extensive history of Evangelical Christianity and Oswald Chamber's place in that movement. On a very practical level, I enjoyed reading Macy's book because of the context it provided me for Oswald - which definitely expanded my understanding of the daily devotionals.

One of my favorite parts of Macy's book were the personal narratives describing various times in Macy's life when "My Utmost" had influenced her. The descriptions and conversations were so well written and imaginative, that at times it felt more like a novel to me than a memoir. I had a difficult time reading the historical portions, and often wished the book would snap back to Macy's life, and her spiritual coming of age story. Macy's book is an excellent read for those influenced or interested in "My Utmost" or Evangelical Christianity.

Although I had never heard of "My Utmost", I can absolutely relate to the sense of conflict and challenge that comes from being raised in a home that values one thing, in a community that seemingly values another. In fact I think many people will be able to relate to that feeling - and will hopefully find the same inspiration in Macy's words that I have.

From middle school through high school, I grew up outside Chicago, IL, and felt that tension - particularly in high school. That feeling might best be illustrated on the day in my social studies class that we watched "Outfoxed", a documentary lambasting the Fox News Channel. I sat in my seat and watched the documentary knowing that after school, when I went home, our TV would be tuned to that very channel for our "fair and balanced" election coverage. While the documentary wasn't directed at questioning religion- the conversations in class afterwards certainly were, and this was and is incredibly common. Whether discussing abortion in health class, the Crusades in social studies, or The Bible as a "book" in English - I always felt that my teachers in life were deeply contradictory. Because while at church I was taught one thing, at school I was taught another. Which of itself isn't necessarily wrong - but it does lead to a lot of conflict.


I immensely enjoyed Macy's writing about her own experience with that conflict - as a teenager and an adult- and how she processed these situations- whether working in NYC in the publishing industry as a Christian, balancing the line professionally and spiritually- or at home in Dallas, when her childhood church's method of delivery seemed to fall more on the political than the spiritual.


There were many moments from this book that stuck out to me, but one in particular was Macy's interaction with a teacher in high school when her faith was questioned. Afterwards, while visiting Paris on a school field trip she is struck, as many of us are long after the fact, by what she could have said in that situation:

"I realized now that I didn't know. I didn't know, I thought again and again smiling. I didn't know, I didn't have to know, I couldn't know."

I was so moved and inspired by that moment, and I know it will stay with my long after finishing this book. What a difficult thing that we grapple with each day as faith of any denomination is questioned by others, and we in turn question our faith. I was comforted by Macy and Oswald's encouraging answer to the questions for which we do not know the answer. I felt a comfort in their decision to embrace the mystery of faith in those moments, because - I don't know, I don't have to know, I can't know.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coming from a very similar denominational upbringing and presently still enjoying Oswald Chamber's Utmost devotional, I found the authors examination of this subject worthy and very interesting. The book is tedious at times as she delves deep, admittedly that was her objective, into Oswald's life to try and uncover his theology and explore how Utmost became so synonymous with conservative evangelical life. I wouldn't say that there is any earth shattering conclusions at the end, but rather she slowly peels the layers off the onion revealing some divergence in the theological foundations in Utmost and the theology of many reading it today. I would say that the author makes no secret about her disdain for the modern/mega church model and there are some rabbit trails to that end. All in in all, definitely worth the read.

[Anna]

Review forthcoming in Publishers Weekly. This memoir was a surprisingly (to me) moving and nuanced account of a spiritual and literary coming of age, in which author Macy Halford grapples with the meaning that a particular devotional -- My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers -- has had in the life of her grandmother, her mother, and Macy herself. She weaves personal narrative together with an account of Oswald Chambers' own late-nineteenth-century life as a Scots evangelical. An excellent read.

[Todd Putney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many Christians grew up reading the devotional book by Oswald Chambers called My Utmost for His Highest. It was a classic although it was not popular or even available when Chambers was alive. Edited and published by his wife after his death, it is still widely read. Halford who has read Chambers all her life uncovers the man behind the book. It is a fascinating read about Chambers and his times.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, what a wonderful book that was! I had to sort of race through the last half (since I'm going on a 3-week trip in six days and am not nearly ready!), which was difficult to do since I was so busy copying passage after passage. I ended up with five pages of notes (single-spaced, on my Mac) and the feeling that there's somebody sort of like me out there.

Macy Halford was raised in Dallas, Texas, by her mother and grandmother, both deeply religious Southern Baptists; she was very active in her big church and her Christian faith was always a big part of her identity. But so was her intellectual curiosity and ambition. (A touching aspect of her story is the unwavering support she receives from her mother, even though her mother must have worried that Macy would fall away from everything that she had been raised to cherish.) She finds herself a graduate of Barnard, working at the New Yorker (as the online blog book reviewer, I believe), and having a hard time reconciling her new life among the intelligentsia with a faith that has never left her -- as her story begins, it seem she has been able to compartmentalize these strands.

A lifelong reader of Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest, a daily devotional that has been in print for 83 years now, Halford goes on an intellectual and spiritual quest to find out more about Oswald Chambers and his writings, but (of course) it's also a way to delve deeper into her own interior life.

I love the way she writes; I love the way that her research and writing process is a big part of the story; I love her powerful intellect and ability to synthesize a ridiculous amount of information into an extremely readable but also seriously substantial (and almost unclassifiable) book. Never since reading C. S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life have I felt this kind of longing; when I read Lewis, I felt I had perhaps been born at the wrong time (and probably the wrong gender) -- that my true calling was to be an intellectual early in the 20th century, to have learned all sorts of languages and read all sorts of philosophy and literature -- heck, even to have been a long-time bachelor with fixed habits that freed up all my intellectual energy for scholarly and creative pursuits, only then to convert and write about Christianity with the same intellectual rigor and enthusiasm I had maintained as a serious intellectual.

With Macy Halford, however, even though I wish I were a writer, I'm encouraged to be myself, in all my particularities, all the glory God bestowed upon me; and in doing so to see and acknowledge that same particularity, that same glory, in every other person I encounter. I'm not sure anybody else would come to that same conclusion, but by the end of this marvelous book it seems that this is perhaps the crucial thing Halford learned from Oswald Chambers (I have four and a half more pages of quotes, but these paragraphs are a great summing-up; they go together):

I wanted to begin to find my anchor in Christ, in his wide-open, all-embracing arms, His ability to hold within Himself every single detail of every single human being who ever was or would be, every being who might have been but wasn't. It was this, His universalism, His ability to love all comers, which defined His character, this that most taught us the need we had of Him in this lifetime. We could hate and fear without help from anyone. To love, as Oswald had said, with Christ's love, not with our own: that was the thing. To love and not to hate; to love and not to fear. 314

. . . I began to see. To see the faces of the women [at a Bible study in her childhood church -- women who are worlds apart from Halford in politics, religion, world-view, etc.], the different fashions they wore, the variety of ages and races they represented; then to look beyond age and race and fashion, taking in each feature: a nose, an eye, a freckle; then to peer even further beyond, looking for the human soul and personality, which rose up, somehow from the inside, wrapping each person, emanating outward. It was amazing to me how, after only a few moments of this directed effort, a strong feeling of love and sympathy rose up inside me, a feeling of interest, of wanting to get to know a stranger. 315

Thank you, Macy Halford, for writing this.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is an excellent writer. I enjoyed the book. My only disappointment is my own fault. I really wanted to learn more about Oswald Chambers. The book is a MEMOIR so of course, the author will be telling about her life. Having lived in Dallas, where she was raised and attended First Baptist Church, I could relate to some of her musings.
I thought it was so interesting how My Utmost for His Highest had such an impact on her life. I admired her honesty and some of her very intense thoughts.
About Oswald: I had not realized he died young, during the Great War. Thought it was neat that he gave his wife the nickname, Biddy, standing for Beloved Disciple.
His thought on marriage: "Human love was a frail emotion. It could easily be upset, since everyone was imperfect. To love with Christ's love was the thing. Unless both people were hidden with Christ, marriage was apt to become either a degrading tragedy or a sordid monotony. Strictly speaking, Oswald did not love Biddy. Rather, Christ in Oswald loved Christ in Biddy. "
Never heard of "bibliomancy"- "He'd never thought himself free from foible or infirmity, yet he'd come to place enormous faith in his feelings and in haphazard details, like Bible verses that suddenly jumped into his mind or his line of sight when he let that book fall open haphazardly that seemed to instruct him..."
When she wrote about attending First Baptist and what the Pastor said, I thought, "I think that is Tom Renard's brother in law doing the preaching." (!)
Around page 295, the author gives a great explanation of Mark Noll's book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Rather EYE and MIND opening....
The last chapter of the book is very moving. Macy H writes about the end of Biddy's life, about Kathleen, Oswald and Biddy's daughter and her own life.
I love memoirs and this is one of my favorites of the past few years. I hope the author is doing well in France!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Utmost is a book about a book, My Utmost for His Highest, a book of daily readings designed to bring the reader closer to God, by Oswald Chambers. This book has sold over 13,000,000 copies since it was published in 1927, at least according to the internet.
Macy Halford uses Chambers's book as a stepping off point to examine her own spiritual journey, and that of evangelicalism in the United States. Halford could be seen as an interesting type, the evangelical who got away. She grew up in a deeply religious, Southern Baptist family in Texas and went off to college to New York City, where she attended Barnard College. But did she really get away, and further, why is it so important to me that evangelicals do get away? (See Jinger Duggar, on the reality TV show, 19 and Counting. I always hoped she'd defy her family and do something terribly radical, like go to medical school. )
Leaving the fact that I believe many evangelicals like the Duggars are brainwashed behind, I will say that Halford is emphatically not brainwashed. She is a serious student of history and the history of ideas. She remains religious, if not conservative, and has strong feelings of admiration for her mother and grandmother, based on the strength of their religious faith.
Halford devotes a year to tracking down information about Oswald Chambers, (1874-1917) a dynamic and prolific Scottish preacher who devoted himself to God, but not in the jingoistic, Colonel Blimp manner of so many of his fellow divines of the time.
Along with an examination of Chambers's life and philosophy, My Utmost traces the development of the Evangelical movement in the United States, and answers the question of how the philosophy we call Evangelicalism developed.

[Mallory]

Feel like I am one of the very limited number of people who would see this book and instantly think I could read and appreciate it, and even I struggled through at times. I’m not rating this because I find it tough rating people’s personal stories and journeys. This read like a book the author simply HAD to write; it was vastly important for her in ways most of us readers might not understand. Even if you grew up in a similar setting under American Evangelical teachings, her story is unique. Part of it felt like an attempt to rehash Oswald Chambers’ biography (which I’ve already read recently), which took away from how this devotional had guided her life over the years. I get it though. Sometimes your life has been molded by something so powerfully and you don’t even realize until you step back and outside of it and examine it fully. This felt like her version of deconstructing.

Favorite quotes: “See, there’s this way in which Evangelical types are able to selectively grab hold of people who, if they actually had them present there in their congregations and had them teaching, they wouldn’t be quite as happy or comfortable with them, but because they are frozen in print, and they don’t know anything about them…C. S. Lewis is the perfect example. He’s no Evangelical.” – Prof. Eskridge

“Perhaps it was because as one acquired more knowledge about the past, it because more difficult to hold unabashedly bright views of it – even the most golden of childhoods dulled with knowledge.”

[Jeff Zell · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thoughtful engagement with and introduction to Oswald Chambers devotional book My Utmost for His Highest! The devotional book was read by Halford, her mother, and her grandmother. It was one of several multigenerational ties that bound the women together.

Halford grew up in Dallas, TX and her family were active members at First Baptist, Dallas. She was molded by the sermons of W.A. Criswell and the Baptist spirituality of the congregation. Even as she went north to college, then to her job in New York working for The New Yorker magazine, she maintained her devotional reading.

At a certain point in her life she wanted to learn more about her evangelical spirituality and the man behind the devotional for whom she, her family, and the Evangelical world were so fond. I appreciated Halford's candor about herself and her theological convictions and expressions. I also appreciate learning more about Chambers. He is much more than his devotional. And, to learn about Chambers is to learn that we probably would not know Chambers now if it were not for his wife Biddy.

Chambers was well read in literature, an artist, poet, teacher, preacher, and a man deeply concerned about his own holiness and faith as well as sharing Christ with others. He is a fascinating man.

An informative read on Chambers and Evangelical spirituality and history.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written memoir by Macy Halford, inspired by Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest and its importance in her life. In addition the book includes a history of Evangelical Christianity and a biography of Oswald Chambers.

One thing I found particularly interesting was her explanation for why Utmost became such a success in an era when there were many 19th century style devotionals. Halford explains that a crucial element in its success was that it "fell into the right hands" as soon as it arrived in America in 1935. The top four pair of hands belonged to the following: Richard C. Halverson (later pastor at Hollywood Pres and Fourth Pres in Bethesda; chaplain of U.S. senate; one of founders and sustainers of National Prayer Breakfast); Henrietta Mears ("the Mother of Sunday School," founder of Forest Home); Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade for Christ--recently rebaptized as Cru); and Billy Graham.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book frustrated me at times, but I had to keep reading to see what conclusions the author drew. While well-researched, there's a definite bias (which could also be an age difference/culture gap - I am a bit older than the author) which could be construed as condescension but could also be viewed as simply asking questions and searching. I tried to view it as the latter. Halford has a complicated writing style that I found tedious at times yet often breathtaking. I found her attempts to put various incidents in particular places inconsistent. I'd be reading along, lost in some philosophical train of thought, then she'd interrupt with a practical detail - putting a glass down or talking to another person. It was hard to connect with the "now" in the midst of the "memories." With those negatives, there is a great deal of food for thought in this book - which is what Oswald Chambers has always given me, so that is fitting.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a disappointment, probably not because it was poorly written but because I had placed unrealistic expectations on it. I had hoped that it would be a spiritual memoir, similar to that of Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God or Pete Gall's My Beautiful Idol, that was a sort of post-modern, articulate Christian coming of age story written by a cerebral type of evangelical whose writing shatters the typical Christian culture stereotypes. Halford is articulate and post-modern, but the book felt more like a doctoral thesis on Oswald Chambers than a memoir.

[Anita Ashland · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is partly a memoir of the author, who grew up Southern Baptist in Texas and ended up working at the New Yorker and then moving to France. Many people will relate to how she shed the conservative beliefs of her youth. The book is also just as much a biography of Oswald Chambers and analysis of his work. If you like Utmost for His Highest and are interested in a spiritual trajectory like Halford's, then you will like this book.

[Mar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Halford reflects on her experience with Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest, a classic devotional book she received when she was baptised as a young teen. As a young adult she researches the lives of Oswald, his wife Biddy, and daughter Kathleen to see how they impacted the writing of this devotional and Halford's own interaction with it. I did not appreciate what I found to be a rambling book.

[Readnponder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued how a young woman went from growing up in the bastion of the Southern Baptist Convention to being an editor at "The New Yorker." Macy relates her spiritual journey in alternating chapters with biographical information on Oswald Chambers, the author of the devotional classic, "My Utmost for His Highest." I learned much about Chambers and still more about reconciling real life with childhood faith. I look forward to reading more by Macy Halford.

[Megan Carver · Rating 1 out of 5]

It felt like she took a lot of assumptions with Chambers thoughts, emotions, views. Didn't feel like I was reading about him just what SHE thought/interpreted about him. Would not recommend it. She has a negative view of conservatism and seems to talk down to that group. According to her, she has "studied" and it more enlightened.

[Jonathan Hiskes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Halford weaves together a history of the Oswald Chambers devotional book 'My Utmost for His Highest,' a study of its influence among American evangelicals, and her own spiritual arc as a Texas Baptist turned New Yorker web editor turned Parisian writer.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part memoir (more enjoyable) and part biography/meditation on Oswald Chambers and the role that his devotional has played in the author's life and in evangelical Christianity.

[David Pocta · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much to love about this book. Macy is a great writer. She tells her own story while explaining Utmost and the history of the Chambers journey. It is a fascinating narrative told from a fairly typical millennial's viewpoint of faith and religion. A true commentary on the modern state of spirituality in the western world.

I really wish she would have explained more of her own journey at the end of the book. Macy clearly wrestled with her faith from childhood, through her time in New York, and seemed to find her feet through her research. She leaves us hanging a bit, recognizing the chasm between her and her grandmother. She states the differences she feels with her baptist upbringing throughout but leaves many questions unanswered. To be fair, she may still be on the journey herself but it was evident that she had made much progress. I personally loved the self-disclosure in the early and middle parts of the book. I just wish she would have carried it through until the end.

[Jamie Newman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fabulous read. Helped me make peace with my church roots and move forward. Well written and well researched.

[Columba]

interesting WSJ review (2/14/17). A young woman's reflections on the devotional classic. cath