Meditations on John 15, how to to live 'present'. What is it to ABIDE?
# one -
John 15:1-2
Hi.
Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Meditations on John 15, how to to live 'present'. What is it to ABIDE?
# one -
John 15:1-2
How to live "present". It is to dwell. to remain. to stay in a place or position or state. It's about abiding.
But to abide must start with my thinking and beliefs.
Join me in a series of meditations on John 15:1-16 where jesus gives you and I a beautiful picture which holds the key to this kind of life.
It’s easy for me, (us), to read this and look at those silly, ungrateful, forgetful, greedy, grumbling Israelites and think, “what is WRONG with them??!!”
But the Word is a mirror that shines on my own fickle heart and when I’m willing to gaze into it I see how much I am the same as the grumbling crowd.
Over and over and over. How about 26 times in 26 verses?!
That would be - important.
I’d be paying attention and thinking, He really wants me to get this. This is worth repeating.
- sigh - I’ve fallen into the same trap that the majority of us do though … thinking forming a list of resolutions, (whether you write your list or hold it secretly inside), will be enough to form the discipline required to cause that list to move from ink on paper to boots on the ground.
Real change happens in small steps. Incremental steps. Choices made in each, present moment, supports goals. Moment by moment decisions are easier when we don’t have an ocean of lists to recall and stay committed to.
It’s enough to make us dizzy, all this turning of shortcomings, around and around in our minds. And perspective is skewed with dizzy, spinning hearts.
But the wisest words for this New Year for me, (maybe you too?), words to stop the drain, the emptying, the dizzy, self-absorbed perspective, are words worth repeating:
“But THIS I call to mind, and THEREFORE I have hope:
...
There's something about sky. It speaks of God's bigness. It pulls me from my small perspective and reminds me that His is infinite. And He is everywhere. He is not limited to the
present, because He's been in my past and has already traveled to my future, but somehow, is in my right now too. He's that big. That whole. That complete.
Emmanuel.
My Christmas decorations are moving towards their boxes for storage and carols still linger in my mind and Emmanuel could easily feel like one more thing to pack away until next December
