From Striving to Abiding

As God leads me into the adventures of this summer, I know that He is leading me into a season of rest and intimacy with Himself. I’ve been a striver for as long as I can remember, and for most of my life I’ve felt stressed out and overwhelmed at the number and enormity of the tasks before me. This past month has felt especially overwhelming to me as I have learned about more and more desperate situations going on around the world and God’s desire to bring hope and life into them. In many ways, I feel like I’ve been carrying the weight and pain of the world on my shoulders and it’s felt like my responsibility to strive harder to bring God’s Kingdom into these places. But I’m learning that God is not calling me to strive or to carry this weight. Psalm 46:10 says, “Cease striving and know that I am God. I WILL be exalted among the nations.” I know that God wants to lead me to a place this summer of abiding rather than striving. He’s calling me into a deeper experience of His words in John 15: “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.” I’m excited to learn the practice of remaining in Him this summer: to rest in Him throughout the day, enter a deeper place of intimacy with Him, let my heart and mind abide in Him and His presence, and then watch HIM produce fruit through me. The secret to bearing much fruit isn’t striving. The secret is abiding, and I’m excited to dive into that secret and all its treasures this summer!