A Deeper Place of Abiding

Recently I was meditating on some things that I felt that the Lord had told me he wanted me to do. As I envisioned myself attempting to obey the Lord, I saw myself over come with self doubt, unbelief, and fear. I heard the voice of others who were observing me saying, "Who does he think he is?" and "What are you doing here?" In my mind I began to crumble.

Suddenly my thoughts became like a vision and I saw myself wrapped up and reinforced in Jesus and I began to advance through the crowd of antagonists effortlessly. The Lord began to speak to me saying, "I have never asked you to do anything that you could accomplish on your own. Neither have I ever asked you to do something that was impossible to do in Me." The Lord has not set us up to fail. He has called us as sons to learn, grow and mature. The sooner we understand the secret of abiding, the sooner we will begin to advance.

Ever since, the Lord has been speaking to me about a deeper place of abiding. What we often misunderstand is that though He is always ready to abide in us, we abide in Him sporadically. But He is faithful, and if we ask Him, He will take us to a deeper place. We do not have to find it ourselves. Actually, this place is beyond our reach unless He leads us there. But a willing and trusting heart will be escorted into new realms of grace and peace.

Interestingly, it is often the difficult circumstances we face that push us to a deeper place in Him. Life presses against us and we will either be crushed or find the place of safety in His abiding presence. We are forced to find our life in Him. I sometimes wake up early in the morning with panic or unrest that is profound and terrifying and I have fallen on my face crying out for relief. The agony of my soul compels me to go deeper until I find refuge from the pressure. I stay there until I know that I have been heard. When the breakthrough comes, I step into clarity, peace, and confidence and I can tell that I have been clothed with the armor of His presence. It is only then that I am able to accurately assess the situation and lay hold of the solutions I need to deal with the current crisis.

I have come to understand that this is my training ground. I used to dread it. But now I let it serve me. I hate the pressure that life brings on me, but the secret place is becoming a place of great delight regardless of what forced me to go there.

David asked the Lord to "train his hands for war." There is a training that goes on in the secret place that can be found no where else, for it is in this place that the Lord fashions our heart and reinforces our inner man. As we emerge from this place equipped, we will be armed with "the word that sustains the weary" and be able to to give "to every man an answer" and find solutions for the complexities of life.

In days to come, the pressures of life are going to increase. It is time to find a deeper place of abiding!