Last week, when the Lord turned my attention to these verses from the Bible, I completely stopped my ‘busyness’ and revised my daily schedule, my priorities. In prayer, I was inspired to share this with you.

How much time do we spend in communion with Him, reading His Word, meditating on what the Lord teaches us? Do we nourish our inner man? Do we come to the sources of water — to His word and prayer — in order to receive His revelation, guidance, and strength to bear the fruit? Also, He drew my attention to another verse “…the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me….. Without Me you can do nothing. “

We can work, put a lot of effort in something, and have very busy schedules. It may seem to us that if we are constantly in action, it means we are moving forward in life, and it is a good thing. But sometimes we might not even notice that we are like a squirrel in a wheel, who runs and runs nonstop in a circle … to nowhere. At the same time, vanity has the ability to devour us completely and steal our inner strength from us. As a result, if we do not abide in Him we may end up in an endless cycle of busyness and, come to the point of inner exhaustion. There will be no fruit without a close connection with Jesus.

Daily responsibilities, work, goals, interests, friends, world news and social media daily bombard us, and we do not even realize that while we consider ourselves living in faith, we often put off our prayer or reading His Word “for later”, on “when I have time.”

Over the years, I noticed that every time I got fully engaged in some projects and other urgent matters, leaving prayer and reading His word for ‘later, another time, when I have a free moment’, I would lose my inner strength. It seemed as though my inner energy, liveliness and aspirations within me dried up. I felt empty, and tired. And when I came to my senses that this was a wrong inner state, I realized that in order to gain inner vitality, I needed to return to a constant close communion with God. And surely, I felt a huge difference every single time when I returned to my source of life! Through His word and prayer, it felt as though I approached the sources of the waters, and everything inside me came to life. I felt vigorous, filled with energy and strength. Cheerfulness was overflowing! And, in addition, my projects went completely differently: everything was lining up in my favor and I had successful results in everything I did.

As we drink water and eat food to support our physical body, we must give the same to our spirit. If we want to be healthy spiritually, have guidance from the Lord, and bear fruit, we must have a close relationship with Jesus through His word and fellowship with Him in prayer.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither;And whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalm 1:2-3)

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

We all live in a very noisy world. And certainly, other interests and endless cycle of things to-do will surely appear on our path, pushing our time with the Lord to ‘later’. The question is, what will win – our desire to have a close relationship with the Lord, or our choice to give in to what appears in our way?

~ Inga