June 18thAbide
- by Craig Frere
Like God’s creation, life consists of seasons. For many people, the months of July and August are a distinct season of life. It is a season when students are out of school, people take time off work, and family vacations happen. It is often a slower pace of life which we usually see reflected in the church calendar as well. It is a season where vacation from work is taken and there is more time for rest and recreation.
All of this, I believe, reflects God’s design for human beings to both be involved in meaningful work as well as the need for us to take times to rest. Work and rest are the two sides of a swinging pendulum. It is not that we are to try and find the middle ground between the extremes and park ourselves there. Rather we are to be constantly swinging back and forth between them.
In John 15, Jesus uses the analogy of the vine and the branches to teach his disciples about this. Jesus talks about how a vine can’t produce fruit if it isn’t connected to the vine. Makes sense, right? But then Jesus also says that whoever abides in him will bear much fruit. Here we see those two extremes of the pendulum expressed in terms of fruitfulness and abiding. Work and rest. Fruitfulness and abiding. Doing and being.
Rest isn’t simply stopping work and doing nothing. Times of resting are times of renewal and recharging.
I prefer translations of John 15 that use the word “abide” rather than “remain”. Abide in me. Abide is connected to the word “abode” which means your house or the place where you live. It hits differently to think about Jesus saying “Abide in me” from that perspective. Abide in me. Make me your dwelling. Make me the place where you live. Make your home in me. Jesus invites us to do that because there we will find true rest.
Rest isn’t simply stopping work and doing nothing. Times of resting are times of renewal and recharging. They can also be times of reconnecting with God. As we take time to rest and reconnect with God, Jesus says in the vine and branches analogy, that seasons of resting and abiding are when God – the Gardener - prunes us. God works in us and with us to help us in our being so that our doing will be even more fruitful. And that is God’s will for us – to bear much fruit.
So as the pendulum swings towards more restful places in these next couple of months, let’s not just take time to rest. Let’s also intentionally take time to abide and let God work in us, change us, and renew us. So that our doing and our working will be even more meaningful and fruitful for God, for ourselves and for the people around us.
-Craig is the co-leader of Mosaic Niagara – a church plant in the Niagara Region – and Interim Pastor of Leamington United Mennonite Church