Tai Bender | Rest and Abide

Back in February/March I joined a small group at church known as a “huddle”. It is slightly different than a regular Bible Study or Small Group. It is a group focused on learning discipleship by studying the habits of Jesus as laid out in the book Building a Discipling Culture by Mike Breen. The book is very enlightening and thought provoking and teaches many ways that culturally we just do things backward. As Jesus did, Breen seems to challenge cultural norms over and over. Last week we started studying a new concept in the book. One of the points made was that we ought to rest an abide in Christ in order to work – NOT rest from work. I had never thought of it like that! We are studying John 15:1-12 and I am just going to give you some bullet points I wrote down from our gathering. This might give you a bit of food for thought.

• Man’s first day on earth was rest. Rest and Abiding are essential before we can begin work to bear fruit
• We are just the branches! The tree doesn’t work hard to produce an apple. Christ is the vine
• Our resting and abiding time allows growth so that we (branches) are prepared to work to produce good fruit

Oh, friends, I could talk about this all day long but I hope you will read the verses and take some time for prayer and reflection.

I painted my page with Neocolor II watersoluable wax pastels and added the beautiful “Abide” stamp and arrows stamp designed for Illustrated Faith by Soul Scripts. Our group will be studying this concept for several more weeks so I left lots of room for journaling later. I think I will leave the feather (from Bella Blvd) tucked in the page. It is a reminder that under His feathers I find rest. I have been working to put this concept into practice by focusing on intentionally taking time to rest and abide in the presence of God and trust that He will handle what needs to be handled. I need not work, work, work just to get to a point of rest. I just need to trust God!