Abide with Me

     Are we content to live "the reaping from what we've sown" life, or are we willing to do what it takes to live Life and More Abundant Life?
     The first life is when we are still trusting in ourselves and trying to manage our  own lives, which indicates we are sowing unto the flesh. And what does this reap? Destruction, according to God's Word. Ouch! (This relates to a post earlier this week about Ignoring God's Wisdom.) Lately He is showing me how attached we've all been to our own wisdom, which has closed our ears to listening to His. In the past, I have wanted Him to increase the volumn of His voice, so that I could hear Him clearly, but He doesn't work that way. He wants us to be quiet, so that we can hear His voice.
     When we abide in Him, it means we are trusting in Him, and then we can hear His voice; it means we want to. When we do hear Him, we will do as He wants, being convinced fully that He really does know what He is doing. We understand and revere His position as God, and we have learned to accept it; in fact, we crave it. This abiding leads to the Abundant Life full of the rich and satisfying fruits of the Promised Land. Our part is to decide to "go in and possess it" believing that He has already gone on before us and has purchased it for us, and that He will protect us from the enemies in that Land.
     In my distant past, when I was reaping the full force of what I had sown, and didn't realize it at the time, I had thought wrongly, that this was the life God was providing for me. Yes, it was full of distress, pain and heartache, but I didn't know I could do anything about it because I was not acknowledging my own sin. I didn't belong to Him at that time, but I thought I did. If He had not come to me when He did to offer Himself to me, I would have probably deducted that I wasn't worthy to have a good life, so God didn't give me one, and would probably had turned bitter, and blamed Him for it. The wrong viewpoint draws the wrong conclusion.
     The truth was "not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, O Lord, standin' in the need of prayer." I needed Him in my life, didn't really know how to reach Him, (thinking I already had Him because I went to church) and so He came to meet me while I was yet a sinner. Oh, the grace and wisdom of God towards us is immeasurable. It was a divine rescue indeed.
    Now, that I am "in Him" and have been for many years now, the old ways of operating apart from Him, try to crop up every now and then and take control. This struggle indicates still a lack of trust and believing Him for my life. I'm saddened at this, and it is really hard to face, since I know in my head that He is faithful and just and trustworthy, but my faith in Him is ever-increasing and growing, and I won't be content until my whole heart is undivided towards Him. Better news than that is that I know that He is not content either, and He will relentlessly redeem all in me that is not of Him and is not for Him. I will cooperate by deciding over and over again in all situations to believe in Him and trust Him.
    Even with hardship, the Abundant Life, so exceeds the "sowing/reaping" life. For one thing, we are not alone, and for another, we experience His love, grace and mercy and we have a relationship with Him; the pearl of great price.
     So, when we view our lives, it is important to ask the question if our struggles are from our own attempt to manage it, and we are living in the disastrous reaping, or if we are truly listening to His voice, believing Him and His promises, and living out of that position of abiding in Him? The answer to that is the difference between true life and death. He's ready when you are.