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, ...