Return to the Fountain

The Way Back to Abiding … Part 1

When doing for God begins to replace being with God

I was recently having lunch with my brother when he mentioned that he was reading Jeremiah.

“Oooh. Doom and gloom,” I said.

We laughed and continued our conversation.

So imagine my surprise a few mornings later when I sat down with the Lord and asked what I should read that day.

Jeremiah.

That's for my brother, I responded.

But I knew where I was going.

I opened to Jeremiah 1, and immediately verses began jumping off the page.

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb …”

“Before you were born, I set you apart…”

“Do not say, ‘I am too young.’”

Or too old, in my case.

“You must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you.”

“Don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you…”

“I am watching, and I will certainly carry out all my plans.”

I had come looking for direction.

Where should I go next? What should I do? What is the next assignment?

Instead, I was being reminded of the One who gives the assignments.

When Doing Replaces Being

Something had happened over the previous months that I didn't fully recognize until I stopped.

I hadn't walked away from God.

I still believed Him. I trusted Him. I was serving Him.

I went where I believed He asked me to go. I wrote. I ministered. I cared for people. I worked on the nonprofit. I prayed for others. I tried to be obedient.

There was plenty of doing for God.

But somewhere along the way, there had become less being with God.

Prayer wasn't what it had been. Bible reading became more sporadic. The disciplines that had anchored my mornings began slipping around the edges of everything that needed to get done.

There wasn't a day when I decided, I'm not going to spend time with God anymore.

It was a slow drift.

Some of the prayer structures that had surrounded me disappeared. Then my own schedule became increasingly unpredictable. Travel changed my routines over and over. Eventually I entered an especially demanding season of caring for people I love. Sleep was scarce, solitude even scarcer, and there always seemed to be someone or something that legitimately needed me.

Everything took a hit—friends, email, writing, social media, Umbwella's Stand, even basic rest.

And so did my intentional time with God.

None of those things were sinful. Caring for people I love certainly wasn't. But somewhere in all the legitimate reasons, I stopped protecting the thing I knew I needed most.

I didn't take the hour..

The slope had already begun. That extraordinarily demanding season simply exposed how little margin remained and helped me slide the rest of the way down it.

I noticed it early.

Someone told me that the doing was part of the being.

There is truth in that. Our relationship with Jesus should produce action. Jesus said that those who remain in Him will bear much fruit.

But months later, I realized I had accepted that truth in a way that wasn't healthy.

Somewhere along the way, I had also accepted the idea that it didn't matter when I read my Bible as long as I read it sometime during the day.

I don't believe that anymore—at least not for me.

Scripture doesn't command me to read my Bible first thing every morning. But I know myself. I know my life. And I have learned that sometimes today can very easily become not today.

For me, putting God first isn't about earning anything from Him. It is about protecting what matters most before everything else begins asking for me.

Doing can flow from being. 

Doing cannot replace being.

Jesus didn't say, “Produce enough fruit and you'll stay connected to Me.”

He said:

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself.”
—John 15:4

Abiding comes first.

Fruit follows.

I knew better. But I didn't course correct, and gradually the path widened as I wandered a little to the right and a little to the left.

Still serving.

Still going.

Still believing.

But not abiding as I once had.

Cracked Cisterns

Then I reached Jeremiah 2.

God reminded His people how they had once followed Him through the wilderness. Then came the question:

“What did your ancestors find wrong with me that led them to stray so far from me?”

And finally:

“My people have have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me -- the fountain of living water,
And have dug for themselves cracked cisterns,
that can hold no water at all.”
—Jeremiah 2:13 (NLT)

I stopped.

How had I abandoned God?

Where had I neglected the Fountain while continuing to do things in His name?

Had I become so busy carrying water for everyone else that I wasn't stopping to drink?

That one hurt.

There are other cracked cisterns in my life. People's approval can become one. So can their criticism. I have had to surrender both the people who think I can do no wrong and those who seem convinced I can do no right.

Neither gets to define me.

But this time, the deeper conviction wasn't primarily about other people.

It was about me and God.

I had become comfortable with His presence.

Maybe too comfortable.

I knew He was there. I trusted His faithfulness. I knew He loved me. I knew He would lead me.

And perhaps, without ever intending to, I had begun taking that relationship for granted.

Plow Up the Ground

By Jeremiah 4, “doom and gloom” didn't feel much like doom and gloom anymore.

“Break up your unplowed ground.”

Return.

Repent.

Let God deal with what has become hard.

The words of Psalm 139 became my prayer:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. 

I repented.

Not because I had stopped loving God.

Because I loved Him and had allowed other things—even good things, even assignments from Him—to occupy space that belonged to Him.

I had come asking:

What's next?

God didn't answer.

Instead, He brought me back to the Fountain.

Perhaps before I needed another assignment, I needed to remember that He was never merely the One giving the assignment.

He was the reason for all of it.

And on that first morning, I didn't receive the direction I wanted.

I received something I needed more.

Return to the Fountain.