Abide

AbIde
October, 2019

I am one year out from my motorcycle accident and I still hurt physically, relationally, financially, almost every day. Last week was a particularly brutal one with ongoing pain, fatigue, and an overwhelming, unspecified hopelessness that pushed me to the edge of a panic I haven’t felt in years.

I was brought back from the edge by the simple words of a scholarly man applying God’s Word to life. My friend, Mr. Chambers, reminded me that God uses the dark times to take me to a deeper trust in Him. He reminded me that when my relationship with God is deepened, God brings His vision for my life into reality. Mr. Chambers said: “’If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…” (John 15:7)-that is the way to keep going,” These words were my lifeline.

I saw anew that during a struggle, a deepening, it is crucial to ABIDE. It means to stay with expectancy, to remain, to endure. It is not passive. It is active.

To Abide requires me:

To acknowledge my difficulty, to turn to Him and to endure until there is movement in my spirit again.

Requires me to 2 Corinthians 10:5:
“Demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

To endure when times are low by not assigning meaning to the darkness, by resisting the tendency to blame, to refuse to feed the distress, to interrupt the cycling negative thoughts until they are taken captive and quieted. ABIDE

Taking captive every thought by shining God’s light on each one. (“In His light, we see light” Psalms 36:9) and replacing the darkness with Philippians 4:8,
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.”

ABIDE: Not just once but every time the darkness swirls around me. Restart, reboot, recommit to “whatever is…” until the swirling abates.

Abide also means standing firm in the truth I do know. I may feel hopeless but I am not hope less. My hope is full and Living.

Abiding in the truth of I Peter 1:3, “God…has caused me to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

AbIde.
Look closely and you will see that when you abide you meet the Lord at the point of your need.
Do you see?
Right in the middle of AbIde is the I of “I AM”,
the name of the one and only sovereign Lord of the Universe.
He’s there, wait til you see!

Blessings, Anne

“See to it that no one misses the grace of God.” Hebrews 12:15