Abiding

How do we live free from the identity which we may find in what we do or what we’re passionate about? How do we move beyond strife, envy, and ambition in the pursuit of our dreams to a more narrow and satisfying gate? For it’s senseless to live from one man approved mountain to the next, trudging through a valley of self-abasement or delusion until we come to the next peak of our great and arduous journey. I, for one, do not want to depend on their words, their measurements, their chains of manipulation to pull me out of a world which is slowly losing its enchantment, slowly transforming from a golden maid to a haggard witch whose control is to make us believe we need her in order to leave our mark. So how do we find that place of contentment in the Father, where His approval, His promotion, His timing is all that we know and desire? As John writes, “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” First of all, shame seems to be the antithesis of confidence, the root of our shrinking away. Why would we have shame? Simple, because we are not abiding in Him, because we don’t know Him. I believe abiding is key to our maintaining a steady spirit in the Lord through which we receive our approval, and even through which God receives His. It’s not as though He needs it, but I think He longs to have it all the same, as a father might long to have his son ask for a blessing upon his marriage. When we abide in God, we put to death every voice that says we ought to be doing something; we ought to be running hard after our dreams. To be still and know that He is, that He is fully aware of what we need, of what pressures exist in our lives, of what things we long to achieve, and that He is more than able to accomplish those things. If the process seems to stall, seems to last a little longer than forty years in the desert, we must return to our place of abiding, to entrust ourselves in a secret fold of the Father’s robe where time stops, and the presence of I AM can filter through our decaying mindsets of failure and abandonment. That’s all we need to comprehend, that He is I AM, able to raise the dead because death is nothing more than the talon of the witch’s frustrated finger, weaving fervently her last, desperate spell. But the light of His abiding self, which He chooses to rest on and in us, damages that spell, cuts the talon off even if it’s to grow once more. One day, she will be toothless, fingerless, and mute. And out of her dispossessed body will rise a new earth, one which our full authority and life will be revealed from the seeds of our abiding.