Come, Abide

I was telling a friend about my lifegiver resolutions, my convictions to tend to my home and to focus my energies and priorities more on where I should. “But whom are you relying on?” she asked me. “You can’t do that by yourself.” I agreed with her, of course, and gave a vague answer about how I need to spend more time with God. Then I spent the rest of the day feverishly working, not giving God much thought at all.
I had grand plans for my week, plans to begin restoring my home to order. My plans did not include Ben getting a violent stomach bug Monday night and Mikayla refusing to sleep for no apparent reason. I was up all night, resulting in a yesterday of chaos, disorder, grumpiness, and little of productive value. In the middle of the day, as I cried out to God for the hundredth time, my friend’s words came back to me. I smiled in spite of myself. Maybe this was God’s way of reminding me that I really can’t do any of this on my own.
The theme of my life lately seems to be “abide.” John 15 keeps popping up in all kinds of ways. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” Point taken. “Without Me you can do nothing.” Must I always be the living example?
“He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit…If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” Do any of us really know what it means to abide? To dwell. To stay. To remain. To rest. The concept of abiding presupposes that I am with the Lord, that I have come to Him and consciously chosen to stay there. First I must come.