What captures your attention? 

I took a trip with my family a few years back. We went to Colorado to visit my husband’s grandmother. We stayed with his aunt and uncle in Fort Collins. They took us on a hike near their home. It was quite the trek up the trail. All along the way, we saw little creatures, trees, and other passerby’s. It was cold and seemed like a really long walk but when we rounded a bend to a perch near the top. It was breathtaking. 

I sat there for a very long time just taking in the majesty and the greatness of this view. It had thoroughly captured my attention. I was in awe. Whenever my husband and I think about taking a family vacation I always put in my two cents in by saying, “I want to go to the mountains!” I felt so close to God. I want to go back. It is altogether different than dwelling with Jesus in my cozy chair in the middle of fall. Even though I also love that space with Jesus. It just doesnt compare. 

John 8:31-32 “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

The word Abide means to await, dwell, remain, sit, continue. 

Abide is a thing that is so hard for our technology-driven souls to endure. To abide is to take time to wait with God, to dwell in His presence, to remain with Him, to sit at His feet, and to continue with Him. It is accompanied by not rushing on to the next thing. No hurry. Just abiding.

Our souls need to abide in the Word.  Why? Because if we do not abide in the word, if we don’t let our eyes run along the lines of the words He left for us like my eyes traces every tree and ridge of that mountain then we miss the truth. I sat there looking, peering, abiding…  what did I see? God is the Creator. He made this and He made me. I didn’t just know it. I experienced it! I breathed it in. He is God and I am His creation. God became bigger to me at that moment. My tight grip holding on to what I could control in my life loosened that day. I became free to let Him hold my life together. That is abiding. My pastor says, “we have to be careful that we do not make God too small in our eyes!” 

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Truth sets us free. One encounter with God. One word from God where His word comes alive in us – changes us – when we get a glimpse of Jesus and who He is to us and who we are to Him. We can’t help but be changed and made free! 

Make time, rearrange your life if you have to, to make reading the word a staple in your spiritual diet and not just to devour it but to sit with it, chew on it, dwell with Him and experience Christ in you – He who is your hope of glory! 

Thanks for Listening,

Starla Smith