Do you feel the tension between abounding and abiding? I live with it every day. It’s unending.
I want to abound, to devote myself to God’s work: ” … Be steadfast and immovable; always abounding fully in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).
I want to discover the deepest passions that God hard-wired into me. I want some fire in my belly. I want to experience such a level of motivation that sometimes when I think about the work of the Lord it keeps me awake at night. I want to abound.
But on the other side of my life is Jesus’ statement in John 15:4: “Abide in me, and I will abide in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must abide. Neither can you bear fruit by yourself. You must abide.”
Abide, Jesus says. This, too, is an important New Testament word: to remain, to dwell. In our day we would talk about this as having deep roots, or being centered.
I feel the power of this call as well, the call to be a man of deep prayer, to refuse to hydroplane over my emotional life but rather to experience joy and sorrow deeply. To live the way Jesus would live if he were in my place. “Come to me, all you who labor, and are heavy laden,” he says, “And I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
Some people resolve this tension by just abiding, not seriously troubled by a lack of effectiveness. It is possible for a church to go 20, 30 years or more without producing fruit. People are not challenged, volunteers not trained, resources not well-stewarded-and no one complains. People just get used to not abounding. I don’t want to live like that.
On the other hand, some people run around in frenzied activity. They live in a chronic state of exhaustion and burnout. They may pile up impressive accomplishments, but their spiritual life is dry. They use people; they live with preoccupied souls. There is no depth, no mystery. I don’t want to live like that, either. I expect to wrestle with this tension till I die.
If I’m going to both abide and abound, I need to practice certain principles.
1. Focus on what matters most. Each morning I make a W.A.M.M. (What Activities Matter Most?) list. I need crystal clarity on what’s important and what’s peripheral.
Peter Drucker writes that recognizing what counts as a true contribution is the great challenge for people in work like ours. If I don’t do this, it’s embarrassing to me how much time I can waste.
2. I need to be fully present. Jean Pierre de Caussade described the “Sacrament of the Present Moment.” It means being fully present to God’s call right now.
It means devoting myself fully to the task-writing or counseling or leading or speaking-with my whole being. It means when I come home I must learn the difficult art of leaving work behind, being fully present with my family.
I have learned that certain forces keep me from experiencing “the sacrament”: ingratitude, irritability, tension, a chronic sense that there’s never enough time.
It’s not just that we wrestle with these forces; it’s that we glorify them. Busyness, fatigue, over-scheduling become signs of being important. Dorothy Bass noted that the fourth commandment is the only one that people, even people in ministry, commonly boast about breaking.
3. I need rhythm. One striking aspect of the Creation narrative is that God didn’t get all his work done at once. Why not? It wouldn’t have been hard for him. God was establishing a pattern, a rhythm, for people made in his image.
God worked. And when he was done, God rested. He never burned out. He never said, “Thank me it’s Friday.”
I need to make sure I have a rhythm that includes solitude. I have to schedule solitude, write it in the calendar, and protect it fiercely. Sometimes mine are brief periods of solitude: an hour at a nearby forest preserve. Sometimes they’re longer-a half-day or a day. But my days for solitude never volunteer. They have to be drafted.
4. I need a plan for my leisure. Some time ago I noticed a pattern: my days off would come up, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with them. I have friends who sometimes have whole vacations available but don’t give any thought to what will be life-giving and joy-producing. No wonder we wrestle with fatigue!
5. I need to focus on abounding where God has gifted and placed me. Parker Palmer writes about being offered the presidency of a large educational institution. Because it was a step up the ladder for a teacher and writer, he was ready to say yes. As a Quaker he first called some friends for a “clearness committee” to help him discern if it was God’s call. Their first questions were easy to answer. Then someone asked: “What would you enjoy most about being president?”
“Well, I wouldn’t like to quit teaching,” Palmer said. “I wouldn’t like the politics involved … I wouldn’t like fund- raising.”
“But what would you like?”
After a long pause, he said quietly, “I would like to have my picture in the paper with the word ‘president’ under it.”
Palmer notes that burnout isn’t usually the result of trying to give too much. It’s the result of trying to give what isn’t really in me.
To abide and abound I have to be very clear about the gifts and passions God has given me. And so often ego gets in the way. It’s one thing to embrace my gifts. It’s another to embrace my limitations. But to take an unblinking look at my limitations is one of the greatest tests of character I know.
John Ortberg is teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.
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