I am the Vine. Abide in Me (Part 1)

Am I the only one who struggles to stay with Jesus on my spiritual journey? It seems I always get distracted by life or selfish desires. I see myself as a small two-year-old following behind her Father in a forest full of interesting and dangerous sights. Always stopping along the way to pick a flower or remove a stick in the way. Sometimes needing to rest I’ll sit down instead of asking Him to carry me for awhile. Then when I least expect it something will catch my eye and off I trot on my own path in the opposite direction of my Father.

This scenario has played out time and time again in my life, but it always ends the same. My Father draws me back to Himself. It happens in different ways each time, but I always know it’s Him calling me back. Recently I followed my own path which lead me to sleep later than usual and miss my quiet time more often then not. It started around the middle of the summer when my normally ordered life became very unorganized and disrupted. I saw this coming and started a personal Bible study to hopefully keep me on track. The Bible study wasn’t the best and for that reason I didn’t really mind skipping it on occasion (too many occasions) for a couple extra winks of sleep.

Pretty quickly I noticed a dangerous pattern in my thought life, but instead of squelching it quickly I allowed it to linger. This is such a dangerous thing to do because as the saying goes “be careful what you think because your thoughts become your words and your words become your actions.” For several months I allowed myself to think more about “me”  and put myself in a higher position than I deserved. I also chose not to recognize my sin nature taking hold of my heart and life. Praying was very difficult and my usually strong desire for God’s Word was becoming non-existent. These are always red flags in my spiritual walk but by the time they’re popping up I’m usually far enough away from my Father to not really care so much. I’ve got a taste of freedom in my mouth and I’m longing to do things MY WAY! I realize there is pleasure in sin for a season and I’m blinded by the allure of the pleasure to come; I’m equally blinded to the consequences my sin will bring once it’s given free reign in my body.

During these weeks, I knew things weren’t right but I felt helpless to find my Father again. My desire for Him was alive, and yet it wasn’t strong enough to snap me out of my haze and bring me to the realization that I was headed for trouble. Does that make sense?  He was there, I knew He was close, I hadn’t gone too far from His path but I couldn’t even bring myself to call out to Him. Looking back to where I was, and where I was headed, scares the heebie-jeebies out of me.

Thank God He called out my name!

To be continued...