When I asked God to give me a focus, a vision for the year ahead of me, I felt Him whisper this word....REMAIN.
I'm not sure if you can relate, but usually for me it's sometime around now that my New Year's Resolutions are starting to grow a little old. Yeah...a whole 29 days. Like the yellowed leaves of a vineyard once alive with fruit, the fresh excitement I felt a month ago for patterns and commitments that I knew were LIFE-GIVING to me, start to come under fire from my flesh.
But in my weakest moments...when the days are long and my flesh craves comfort over discipline...God says, REMAIN.
When my alarm goes off, I peel back my eyes to a darkened sky and I'm tempted to miss my life-giving morning routine...God says, REMAIN.
When the thoughts in my head tell me I'm failing, and that I don't have enough for the day before me...God says REMAIN.
When I'm tempted to react to my kids in anger rather than give them the same patient, steadfast discipline that is shown to me by my heavenly Father daily, God whispers to my weary soul...REMAIN.
I walk through life with a heart that beats passionately for eternal things that will not fade away. I live to see people truly come ALIVE as they place more and more faith in a God who will never leave them. A God who promises to REMAIN.
In this phase of my life...homeschooling, raising four unique creations of God...I find myself grasping for solid ground, a LOT. Now, more than any other time of my life I am learning to trust God in a minute by minute sort of way. When I was younger, I remember trusting God with "BIG" things, like my future...who I would marry and what I would "be" when I grew up. As big as those things seemed then, I can honestly say that it has never been more difficult and felt more necessary to trust God in my life as it is now. The stakes are high. There are 5 of them. And I love every one of them.
There's not a whole lot of margin for my flesh to have it's way. There are no breaks. There is no "me" time. And before you write and tell me how unhealthy that is, I have to say that it is only in these times...when the pressure is high and the fire feels it's hottest, that I truly find how committed I am to this journey I'm on with Jesus.
Is the God I preach to others, the One I cling to on my darkest days?
Is the One I sing to on a Sunday morning the same God who sees me through the toughest moments with my kids when no one else is around?
Do I choose to walk steadfastly in the way I know leads to life, or allow the enemy to distract me from the path set before me?
...and He calls me to REMAIN.
My hope for this year does not rest in my own accomplishments, or those of my husband or kids. Though it is wonderful to set goals and see them fulfilled, my hope is in the One who promises to REMAIN with me through my moments (both successes and failures), and calls me to do the same.
John 15:4-11
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. “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.
When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
