God, what do you want me to do? with Chris Herschend
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
I had a tough, internal, tough decade leading up in my forties, kind of late thirties, early forties, and just some decisions I made in business that just didn't work out and not necessarily with our family, but just my own decisions. And I carried that with some bitterness. And in that process, you know, and I think that's not uncommon. But I was really disappointed in myself and I felt like I'd done everything right and it just didn't work. And so I thought about this in the context of what's he teaching me now? And this is really not yesterday or today so much as thematically in the last several just months of my time with the Lord, which is look back how faithful he's been. I see this every day in the world. I was able to read through the entire Bible every year for the last decade, almost, I think maybe a full decade. And that was because I was going through pain and I felt under attack. And I felt like I could identify with all these psalms that David wrote where he was like, hey, get these people off my back and while you're at it, hurt them.
So I came to this word "Abide" and John fifteen. And then again this week, what caused it to mine was in first John "abide" shows up over and over and over. And just the simple act of staying like, you know, sometimes tempted, we ask God all the time, what do you want me to do? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? And I heard clearly in a season where I was really seeking with that question was, hey, this is what I want, knucklehead. And when you here with me, I want you to abide. I want you seeking me and I'll take care of all this other stuff. And it doesn't always work out with a bow, I guess. You know, I think that's what I was sort of bitter about as I was like, well, he promised he'd take care of it and he did. And he is. But my job is really not to worry so much about the outcomes, but really to be just patiently abiding. And so the daily just soaking and steeping and. And praying and reflecting and then walking out feeling like God is well pleased with me, though he may prune a little bit, and that is the thing that I think is this playing in my sort of thinking right now is anything else that God's doing in my life is just abide some stepping in that that's super helpful.