Chapter 7: Abide
There I was, pregnant, unable to do the things I loved, gardening, hiking, any of it. We had to cancel an upcoming vacation, the first vacation we had scheduled in three years. My job was at risk due to all of the political changes and executive orders. It was a season filled with uncertainty and anxiety. I struggled to keep my mind from racing towards worst case scenarios. I was counting down each week until we reached 24 weeks, when the pregnancy would be considered viable if anything were to happen. And we were approaching the one-year anniversary of my mother’s passing. Each day felt longer than the last.
I had been doing my heart inventory each day to combat the negative thoughts, to get myself out of what felt like a spiritual wilderness. I had joined a new discipleship group thinking that this would finally be my way of cracking the code and getting it right. True discipleship, walking with other women of God who were as serious about studying the Word as I was. I started attending their weekly Bible studies on Saturday mornings, twice-a-week prayer calls. I was throwing myself back into doing all the things, but this time around with community, so of course it had to be right? I was wrong. As the weeks went on I became more tired, more anxious, questioning things about my relationship with God I had never once questioned before. I was becoming less excited about studying the Word of God each week and the motivation to stay consistent in my spiritual disciplines began to fade.
People talk about wilderness seasons a lot but let’s dive a bit deeper and revisit the story of Hagar in Genesis 21. She birthed her son she was forced to have by her mistress, Sarah, and named him Ishmael at the Lord’s request. When Sarah finally had a child of her own, Hagar and her son Ishmael were cast out of the home and forced to enter the wilderness again. Once all the food and water were gone, she put her son under nearby bushes and walked further down so she would not have to watch him die. Both Ishmael and Hagar had reached a point of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion. But God heard the voice of Ishmael, and opened Hagar’s eyes to see a well of water. She gave him a drink. Genesis 21:20 says “And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.” God heard Ishmael and provided sustenance for both he and Hagar to continue on their journey. God met them in the wilderness, when they were depleted and defeated, and gave them exactly what they needed to get through and thrive.
We see in 1 Kings 19, after Elijah performed miracles with great power from God, He was fleeing from Jezebel and had reached a state of pure physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion. In the wilderness, he cried out to God, “It is enough; now O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” God heard Elijah and sent an angel to provide him with food and water, sustenance. He made him lie down and rest, and a second time gave him more. He was strengthened and able to travel 40 days and nights to the mount of God.
God meets us in the wilderness when we reach points of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion. And that’s exactly where I was, after having endured so much over the past three years I had reached a moment of complete depletion, a spiritual wilderness where I couldn’t go on. I was grieving, striving, and fighting for so long, with life hitting me with one hardship after another, spiraling into places I couldn’t prepare for.
In reading Priscilla Shirer’s book I Surrender All, she introduced the concept of abiding. I wasn’t familiar with it at all, but she breaks down John 15 and staying connected to the vine. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” John 15:4 ESV. I was still learning that even in my efforts to get myself out of this state of spiritual, emotional, and physical drain were just that, my own efforts. Priscilla Shirer says, “The fruit the vine produces through us are thoughts, attitudes, and actions that glorify God.” And in that season, my anxious thoughts and attitudes were not at all glorifying God. I was beginning to revert to being like the Israelites in their wilderness season for 40 years…complaining and groaning about how difficult my life was since coming back to Christ. Refusing to see anything other than the hardships I endured in comparison to all the work I had been putting in.
The Heart Inventory was starting to reveal that even though I needed to be still, to cease striving, to rest, to surrender, to abide, I actually didn’t know how. That summer, despite me not being able to garden at all, my garden flourished. Sunflowers bloomed and there was a healthy watermelon patch that seemed to take off out of nowhere. I planted no seeds that season. I didn’t clean up any weeds. I didn’t water any plants. Yet, somehow life was abundant in that garden. God was showing me in my own backyard what it means to abide.
Biblically to abide means to stay, dwell, or continue in intimate relationship with Christ, an ongoing dependence on Him, and it’s a daily decision to do so. The English definition of abide also means to endure, or to bear something patiently. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26 ESV. The birds of the air are dependent on God for sustenance, and it’s not just a daily choice for them, it’s their way of life. Just as God provides for all of creation, just as He provided for Hagar, just as He provided for the Israelites, just as He provided for Elijah, He would provide for me too.
Join me next week as I unpack what it looks like to endure, to bear patiently, and to dwell with the Lord.
