remain

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love." John 15:9

 

I am learning what it means to wait.  Not the “sitting in the driveway hoping my grade twelve daughter will finally appear so we can leave for school” kind of waiting, though believe me, I am getting quite experienced at that.  I am learning to wait on God, and in the waiting, to remain. 

I am waiting on answers to brave prayers and holding onto hope in the not-yet.  (see blog: “waiting”).  God is at work in this place.  He is at work in yours.  He uses the waiting to develop in us a Christ-centered heart, a fruitful life, and a steadfast spirit. 

I find in the words of Jesus, the call to remain.

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.  Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.  But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.  John 15: 4-8

I am a goal-oriented girl.  I like getting to a destination the most efficient way.  I like completing a task, being a finisher.  So I read this passage and immediately start taking inventory – how am I doing at bearing fruit?  How is my patience, my kindness, my self-control? I jump right to the goal and miss all the beauty of the process.  And, I take on a job that is not mine to do.  

My call is to cling to Christ.  It is the work of the Spirit to produce fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). I do not need to have everything figured out, to know what the future holds or the most efficient way to get there.  I simply need to stay attached to the One who does, to remain in Him.  

Max Lucado puts it this way:  “You long for the fruit of the Spirit.  But how do you bear this fruit? Try harder? No, hang tighter.  Our assignment is not fruitfulness but faithfulness”  (Anxious for Nothing).

Our fruit bearing brings glory to God, yet the way to the Spirit-filled life is not through effort, but through grace.  It is this grace that reaches us and tends our weary hearts while we wait.

It is our closeness to Jesus, the 'hanging on' that also develops in us a steadfast spirit.  Steadfast is defined as 'resolutely firm, constant, unwavering'.  These are the qualities born in us and strengthened in us as we remain.  We learn to define our days not by our circumstances but by the unchanging character of God. 

If you find yourself in a hard place today, weary from pressing on but seeing few results, waiting on an answer to your own brave prayer, my encouragement to you:  Stay steadfast. This is a holy place, this winter, this waiting.  Spring will come. There will be new growth, and then for certain, there will be a harvest. 

Hold on tight, friend.  Remain.

waiting

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.    Micah 7:7

I don’t think I have ever been described as ‘patient’.  As a child, the days before Christmas were the longest and slowest of the year. The wait literally tortured me (and vicariously, my parents as well).  Maybe you are one of those people who savors the opening of Christmas presents.  You carefully peel the scotch tape from the wrapping paper with all the time in the world.  Let me just say, I don’t get you.  We’ve got one life to live, people.  Get on with it.

I have been making an honest attempt to cultivate patience for as long as I can remember.  And flat out winning, I might add.  I remember as a child I would begin proudly announcing that I was “10, going on 11” mere days after my tenth birthday. Now, I find I am no longer in the same big hurry to grow older.  Clear victory. 

Some of you may really work at finding the courage to keep moving ahead, to stay focused and fueled, joyful and energetic - maybe that is where things get real for you.  You find the resting easy and the running hard.  Me?  My struggle is always in the waiting.  I like to make goals and work toward them, make lists and cross things off.  I have a prayer journal with check marks that remind me of huge answered prayers and the littlest, sweetest ones that mean something to no other heart but mine.

But, I also have a prayer that I have been praying for a long time.  It is a big, brave prayer, a good ask with good motives and it would bring glory to God.   For the life of me, I do not understand why the wait is so long.  I want more than anything to be a faith-filled woman, full of deep, steady trust.  But, there are days, ones like today, when I feel so anxious to see God move and bring change that I come to Jesus more the impatient, pleading child than a God-confident woman.  That is where my heart is this morning in the quiet of my kitchen before dawn, armed with a strong cup of coffee and the story of Habakkuk.

I find courage here. The prophet cries out these painfully honest words to God:  “How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen…” (Hab. 1:2). Habakkuk’s prayer is desperate, raw, authentic.  He pleads for the people of Judah and the injustices they have suffered.  Then this statement:

“I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me…”  (Hab 2:1)

Habakkuk is trusting and expectant.  He knows that God is sovereign and in complete control.  He understands that God will deliver his people in His way and according to His timing.  Habakkuk’s life response, is to live by faith.  Now I don’t imagine he arrived there in an instant and nor will we.  Perhaps that is why the waiting can be so purposeful.  Habakkuk takes time to remember God’s faithfulness in the past.  He knows God will be faithful in the future. The gratitude strengthens his faith and it will grow ours as well.  In the waiting, we learn to remember.   

In the waiting, we learn to surrender.  Every time we release our concerns to God, knowing that He is good, and for us, and working in ways we cannot see, we find freedom and peace.  We develop deeper trust.  Habakkuk’s wholehearted surrender to God is reflected in one of the most beautiful expressions of faith in all Scripture.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.                                                                                

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.  (Hab. 3:17-19)

Maybe, like me, you find yourself in a waiting season.  I believe we are in the exact place we need to be, learning to receive the gifts of winter rather than just living for spring.  I don't know how God will answer our prayers but I am learning to pray, like Habakkuk, "yet I will".  Even if things don't work out the way I hope, yet I will be joyful, yet I will trust.  I do know, that God longs to develop in us all a strong testimony, a courageous faith,
and a surrendered heart that is faithful in the waiting.

learning

“Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”  Ephesians 3:20

We were in the car together, the firstborn and I, and I think I was getting straightened out about something, although I can’t remember what exactly now.  When you raise leaders with strong views and clear beliefs, that type of thing is often the norm.  Opinions about how things should be done are quite common and certain to include some instruction for me too.

 

Now if that hasn’t been your experience you may have some opinions about this, and that’s okay.  I would have too, at one time.  But there are others of you.  You have Dobson’s, The Strong-Willed Child  book on your shelf and you have been holding on for dear life since your child was about age two.  You pray more because you must than because you may.  You are smiling, because you know.  Passion and boldness, the rare world-changing kind, makes for a wild ride. 

In the process of getting straightened out, I hear this: “You can learn from me too, you know Mom.”  The words are my undoing.   At the time, the conversation just rolled along, but some words have a way of taking up residence with me, and now several months later I find that I am still turning those ones over and over in my mind.

And I wonder, have I been doing anything else but learning this whole time? 

Those moments ‘just breathing’ in my bedroom closet, when the tears leaked out as I sat on my bathroom floor (the only private place), when I lay wide awake through night pounding on the door of heaven again and again, wasn’t it all just learning?  Learning that God is so much bigger than the concerns that press like a weight on my heart.  Learning that His plans are beyond what I can ask and imagine, and His ways so much higher than my own.  Learning that our God is good, and faithful, and strong.  And, learning in the end, that in all the teaching of our children, we are the ones who are taught.

I can’t remember a time that I did not look forward to being a mother, and the generosity of the gift is not lost on me.  My four just make me happy. But when all is said and done, I believe the journey of parenthood is one more to holiness than happiness.  Learning to surrender control to Jesus, to trust Him ultimately to protect our kids and guide their hearts is far easier to say (or write) than do.

 

My son’s testimony is not mine to tell.  But this story is mine:  God cares for the hearts of mamas.  He hears our prayers.  He is the Redeemer and Restorer of sons and daughters.  He can, and longs to do so much more than we can imagine for our loved ones, more than we hope for and ask of Him on our very best, most faith-filled day.   

I now have a list of names in my prayer journal of people I have never met.  They are some of the ones that my first born has shared his story and faith with and who have come to know Jesus as a result.  I have watched him worship, and preach, and lead youth, and he is only just barely getting started.  Our days are coloured with more grace now.  We laugh.  We have the coolest conversations, ones I never imagined having.  Are there lots of strong opinions still in there?  Absolutely.  I am thankful for it.  God will manage well that passion in him.

I am not the Mom I used to be or will be.  Every day I need time in the Word to seek Jesus, to lean in, to listen. I appreciate the lessons in life more than I used to, the good and easy days, and the hardest ones that have me clinging to Him with everything in me.  Believe me, I still need some straightening out more often than not.  After all, I am still learning.