[faith] less striving, more abiding

I'm writing over at 5 Minutes for Faith today -- about learning to abide, to live in partnership with God. It's a tricky balance to find, this getting off the couch to take risks and move in a direction of faith but not for our own glory, not in our own power or timing. I've spent much of my life trying somehow to earn people's affection and God's approval. It's a tiresome, effort-based exhausting, mostly fruitless way of life.

Did you know that abide means all of these things? --to wait for, to bear patiently, to accept without objection, to continue, to remain

Sometimes that sounds like sitting on the couch. But I think instead, God means for us to find ourselves in a garden or a meadow or a quiet beach, finding room to breath and finding space to listen.

"Abiding in Christ means paying attention to the voice of God within, nourishing our own hearts and nourishing our relationship with him. Over time." --Captivating

Only in this place will we be equipped to live lives of purpose, of fullness.

Anyway, come over here and read what I wrote. :)