Why Abiding in the Lord is Hard

Dealing with a Leaking Spirit

Jesus urged us to abide in him as branches in the vine (John15:4.)  We might read this wonderful news and assume we’ll always trust God and feel close to him.  But we get distracted, whether it’s like Martha in the kitchen making too-elaborate meals (Luke 10:38-42.) or due to stress and other emotions.  We don’t feel close to God and don’t feel his love.  We may decide we are weak Christians, because we sense we are not abiding in the Lord.

We have forgotten that humans are like leaky bottles. Eventually all the fluid drains out of such a bottle. We ask the Holy Spirit to fill us, but our flesh is weak, and eventually so much of the Holy Spirit’s power has drained out of our lives.  This may happen often, and we must not condemn ourselves (1John3:21, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”) Humans will always battle their flesh (Gal.5:17, “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want,”) and it will slide into carnal desires. Satan wants us to ignore this loss of the spirit’s influence in our lives or condemn ourselves as spiritual cowards.  Both choices hurt us.

Satan loves to distract us from thanking and praising God, because we strengthen our own spirit and welcome more of the spirit in our hearts when we praise God.  I spoke about this in my posts “Encouraging Hurt Believers through God’s Praise,” and “Why We Praise God: Answers to Atheists Who say God is arrogant.”  Satan doesn’t want us to grow in the Lord, so he loves to distract us from anything that increases our awareness of the Lord.

But we might condemn ourselves too.  We may have stressed about something and gotten so busy, hours went by when we didn’t think about the Lord.  It might be bedtime and we realize we have not thanked God much if at all that day.  We may have been upset (fearful or angry) and feel things didn’t work out well that day.  Then we condemn ourselves, because we let ourselves drift from the Lord.

This is where we must rebuke the devil’s condemnation (Zech.3:12, “The Lord rebukes you, Satan,”) and simply repent of ignoring the Lord’s call on our life that day.  Yes, God loves to talk to us and listen to us, but he does not condemn us if we ignore him and then realize our error.  He lovingly welcomes our repentance and our call of mercy for help. 

If we are not organized, we could spend the next day drifting away from God again.  Abiding in the Lord is not as easy as falling off a log.  We do need to organize our efforts, especially if we’ve known the Lord for a long time.  Unlike a baby Christian who often talks about God, our passion may have cooled. Like the cliché of a long-time married couple where husband and wife begin to take each other for granted, we could unintentionally do this with the Lord.  Abiding in the Lord may take some work, the way long-married couples put work into keeping the joy and passion in their marriage.  We’ll get hurt by the mistaken assumption we don’t have to organize our spiritual life or work at staying close to the Lord.  Whether our flesh or the devil lures us to believe this bad assumption, the “free-wheeling” life clashes with the ordered and abundant, spirit-filled life.

Organization sounds like a contradiction to the spirit-filled, abiding Christian life. Yet organization is this life’s friend.  Yes, we do have surprises and spontaneity in the spirit-filled life. But like a faltering garden, that has lacked planning and order, we will always “leak” and lose our spirit-filled joy.

So what order or organization do we need? First, we do best if we dedicate a specific time for reading God’s word and praying.  Otherwise our busy lives will often crowd out this precious quiet time with God, like weeds do the garden plants.

All gals will forget one subject if another subject vies for her attention. So we must surround ourselves with God’s word.  I talked about memorizing Scripture in my post “Why Memorize Scripture: The No Guilt Approach.” Please ask God to help you with that joyful skill.  At your own pace, God can help you memorize what he wants you to do.

We need visible reminders; sometimes these will be verses we already memorized. After all, even if we memorized a great verse, if many problems overwhelm us, we may not think of the specific verse we need.  As a result, we need a strategy.  For this, we must know our weaknesses, just like a good gardener knows her garden plants’ weaknesses.  A plant prone to drying out needs more mulch around its base, but a cactus does not.  If you are prone to fear, you’ll need verses about overcoming your fear and about God’s constant care for you.  If you fall into anger, you need verses about controlling your anger.

And if your weakness is different based upon where you go and what happens to you, you must be aware of this too.  For example, you may have a sweet, peaceful home, but an anger-inspiring chaotic drive to work.  You’ll need a verse about peace in your car but not at home.  Or if you work with hurting people who suffer trauma and anguish and you get drained, you’ll need verses addressing this at your work place.

Your days can change and thus so do your needs.  This is why you must have at least some quiet time in the morning to plan your day, even if only five minutes.  Why?  Because you must honestly consider your day and consider what weaknesses you’ll address that day. In my very recent post “Yes, You Can Win the Spiritual Battle if You Admit it is Real!” I shared how I did not do this when I learned my husband planned to work on our taxes and wanted my help.  Now it’s true he sprang this plan on me late in the morning. But I know this kind of paper work stresses my husband, and I know his stress impacts me.  I now realize that any time my husband tells me he’ll want my help with something that stresses him, I need to excuse myself and cover that situation in prayer, even if I only step away for a few minutes.  If I have written on a note card a few basic Bible verses that cover fear, I can grab one and stuff it in my pocket.  Then when I feel the stress of my husband’s taxes (or difficult paper work or a repair job or anything else that might upset my husband), I can briefly read that verse.

The battle feels like it’s on the outside, but it’s not.  The battle begins in our mind (Romans 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”)  Reading those Bible verses is powerful to remind us that flesh and blood people are not the real enemy.  (Ephs.6:12, “For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.”) Satan is our enemy, and he likes to get us stressed and confused, though he does sometimes use people to do this.  We might need to say something like, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief” and then “Please help me think straight and not get stressed.” God can begin to calm us. And with that calm, we can feel God’s presence.

That is the work behind abiding in the Lord.  This abiding does not mean we will not worry or get stressed.  It means we recognize our stress, and we turn back to God for his comfort.  We need constant reminders of God’s love. Being aware that we will always “leak out” the Holy Spirit’s encouragement, we are better able to remember we just need to keep coming back to get refilled. When we accept this truth, we won’t condemn ourselves, and the devil cannot as easily distract us, because we are aware of Satan’s trick.  Abiding in the Lord requires hard work, but like a gardener who organizes and cares for her garden, we reap huge rewards of joy and peace.

Perhaps the answer to why abiding in the Lord is so hard is because we don’t expect we need to organize our spiritual life, and we don’t realize how much our flesh and Satan resist our abiding in the Lord.  Since there are so many rewards in doing this, I will add a part two to this post.  This hard work (to abide) is so worthwhile, and I want to share some stories about the joy we have when we do this. 

Thanks for joining us in this post.  May the Lord bless you as you learn to rest in him, abide in him and keep getting refilled by his Holy Spirit.