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When I Need a Spiritual Recharge Do I Remain or Flee?

When I invite God in

I needed a spiritual recharge. I sat at my desk, opened my palms, and prayed. I confess I don’t always do this before I sit to write or work. I asked Him to fill me, direct me, flow through me. I opened my hands in surrender and postured myself to receive from Him while releasing my own tight grip.

When He reveals what’s dead

When I opened my computer, it failed to respond. I clicked harder. No response. I had literally just unplugged it from the charging station. The picture appeared on the screen with the red battery and disconnected charger. I walked upstairs to where it rested charging all night to find the cord hanging from the socket. It appeared connected, but it wasn’t fully. A dead battery resulted.

spiritual recharge

 

I brought my charger downstairs, plugged it in, and removed it immediately. I wanted to test something. Would a few second charge do any good at all? My computer fired right up. The battery showed 4%.

What’s Needed Most

And that is when God showed me a picture of how easy it is to be fooled into thinking we are relying on Him fully, when in reality we often come for a quick charge to receive just enough then off we go.

I plugged my computer into the source and allowed a full charge.

I need Him every second of every day.

Yet I strive away in my own strength, running on a weak battery, failing to see power is freely available to me.

My independent spirit is an affront to God. It’s my pride showing up in the form of self-sufficiency. It’s me receiving from Him the gifts and strengths He’s placed in me and working yet failing to stop and recharge in Him.

I want to learn to live a life that is a constant flow of Him. One in which I truly live every minute aware of Him, turning my eyes toward Him, seeking Him, thanking Him.

The busier life is lived, the greater the struggle this becomes.

The more distractions I allow, the less inclined I am to even hear Him speak.

If I stay in constant motion, I might catch a few whispers but I can guarantee I miss much of what He has to say to me. I’m too busy.

Our busy culture is a great threat to our spiritual growth and development. The danger is we often don’t realize what is happening in our own souls. Our charge is weak, but because we can function, we fail to see the great power we’ve bypassed.

The simple secret

My Thursday night small group gathered. We each take a short passage of scripture and share insights the Lord reveals to us. In John chapter 15 Jesus tells us He is the true vine and that His father is the gardener. He instructs us to remain in Him and He will remain in us and that apart from Him we can bear no fruit.

In the first 10 verses of chapter 15, Jesus says ‘remain in Me’ ‘remain in my love’ or some form of ‘remain’ 7 times. The ESV uses ‘abide in me’.

I believe Jesus wants us to understand this concept. He desires we remain in Him. Not grab a quick charge and dart away. But remain. It’s easier for me to pull away from Him than it is to tuck in tight.

Remain. Abide.

The fight is in remaining.  The temptation is to run to distraction, to busy, to entertainment, to purpose, to anything other than Jesus.

Yet, it’s clear, we are instructed to remain.

Remain is a choice. We can remain or we can flee. When we flee, parts of our soul begin to die.

Maybe it’s time to begin the practice of disconnecting from sources that suck from us and offer nothing in the form of restoration. And let’s simply remain in Him.

Maybe it’s as simple as pausing everything, getting down onto our knees, and humbly approaching God. It’s simply seeking Him and nothing else.

God, we come to you in awe of who you are. You are supreme, you are King. You are Lord. You hold the world in your hands. You knit us together. You know the number of hairs on my head. You know all. Nothing is beyond you. You are full truth, full wisdom. My joy is complete in you.


One way to help us remain

I have to keep God’s Word before me always and everywhere. In this culture and climate, it’s too easy to become distracted and off-course. To fall into the traps the enemy sets for our feet. Sometimes it’s a simple reminder, a word, a phrase, that prompts me to stop and consider Him. To let out a deep breath and exhale my cares of this world and inhale of His Spirit.

I created an Abide tea towel to remind us that apart from Him we can bear no fruit. We can try and end up running ourselves into the ground. Inside we will decay. Yet when we surrender to His love and make the choice to abide, remain, in Him, everything shifts. We blossom and produce what’s impossible on our own. Even when our physical world shakes, we remain strong in Him.

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