Right Here

As we close out these thoughts on abiding I am struck by the question a friend asked me today over hot tea and pumpkin pie. “What does it mean to abide?”
I paused.
We’ve been dissecting this the last few weeks together, so what does it mean? What does it look like in the practical day to day of living?
But I knew.
“It’s living where Jesus is always right here.” I said as I moved my hand up and down in front of me. “It’s what we’ve had in this conversation today where we’ve talked about Hormones and menopause and Coca-Cola and yet, he flowed in and out of the conversation as easy as any of those other words.” I felt that stinging that comes in my eyes and nose right before tears start to fall. “It’s how He is present with me on a Saturday morning when the sun is shining and I throw open the sun roof and turn on the country station and sing to the top of my lungs. And it was today as I drove over here and wept as I sang songs about Him that I was making up as I drove. It is the fact that He is always right here.” I moved my hand again.
“Before me. In any conversation. In any activity. I don’t have to search for Him. He is just in it.” That to me is abiding.
This has been identified in me as something bad by different people at different seasons with labels like, “too preachy”, “always talk about God”, and the list goes on but I desire to live no other way. I’m comfortable with those labels if the only way to avoid them is to move Him from up here, to back there. I couldn’t survive with Him back there. I wouldn’t want to live with Him back there.
But yet many do. Many pull Him out only when needed. On Sundays. During catastrophes. When direction is needed. When Santa Claus is late. When doubts arise. But do they really have Him? The abiding Him? The life giving Him? Or do they have a poor counterfeit. I don’t believe God is a crisis reactor. I believe He is a life sustainer. He wants access to the whole, not barely there pieces and parts. And in the access to the whole much life is given. In fact, all of life is given. “Apart from me you can do nothing.”
I want more than “nothing” living. I’ve seen what it looks like, and it is not pretty. It is painful. Full of deception. And filled with illusion that eventually fades.
Where does He abide with you? And if He isn’t here, (I’m waving my hand in front of you right now.) I mean right here, then are you abiding at all?