Is Growth Happening? Learning to Abide

Discouragement flooded my heart the other day as I thought about an emotional breakdown I had last week. Really? I thought I was over that. Why do some of the same things that I’ve been dealing with for years continue to come up? Haven’t I experienced victory in that already? Can it be that I need to continue to learning that lesson until I go home to meet You, Lord? Am I growing? Is there fruit? How can I change? Is there hope for one like me?

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4)

Fruit bearing comes only by way of abiding.  

How do I then abide? What does this mean?

Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:2

The Master Gardener prunes me that I may bear more fruit. Less of me and more of Him. That was John the Baptist’s prayer. It’s mine, too. But it’s harder than I think. “Humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all,” (Murray, Humility)

Humility must come from the life of Christ alone within me. I desire such humility, but it eludes me. The more I chase after it consciously the more I realize that I’m still so very far from reaching it. Murray says that the person who makes abiding in Christ the reality, the place where we live, where we allow Christ to be formed in us, then and only then we forget our “pursuit of holiness and humility” and we graciously serve , honor, and bless others without a reference to self.

Lord, by your grace and mercy, keep me abiding in You. Reveal to me the things that keep me from living on my own.  May the fruit of humility emerge as You pursue me and I learn to submit to the discipline and chastening from Your gentle hand.