So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. - John 10: 7-10 NASB
I remember reading this verse back when I was living by the Christian formula mentioned in this article: Hope is on the Horizon and thinking, “Abundant life? Really?” Don’t get me wrong, according to the formula, I was doing it right: believing the right things, doing the right things, not doing the wrong things. I even lived in a sort of Christian utopia, but there was something missing. I felt like the utopia could crumble; that my children, husband, and I could lose our salvation and go to Hell simply by messing up any part of the formula, or even on a technicality. It didn’t feel steady; the formula was crumbling. During this time, if someone I knew and loved experienced a tragedy, I didn’t know what to do. Crumble. If someone was sick, I didn’t know what to say. Crumble. If I did a wrong thing or worse, if one of my kids did a wrong thing, I felt we were condemned. Crumble.
One afternoon, I went to visit a sweet young lady from our church in the hospital. She was chronically ill, so she was in the hospital a lot; but she was a very brave and strong person. I wanted so much to encourage her. When I was with her, I thought of the verse I had read in James 1:2-3 -ESV “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” I remember saying to her something to the effect of, “God must be strengthening your faith through this trial.” And I remember her responding, “I wish He would strengthen someone else.” I felt terrible about what I said for my so called words of encouragement. Crumble. Now I see how unhelpful and not encouraging my statement was.
I remember singing songs like, “When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be, when we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory!” This song was great while we were singing it, but it talks of a day in the future. The day when we all get to Heaven. Singing this song solidified in my mind the idea that I would see Jesus when I get to Heaven, someday, in the future, and who knows how far in the future because I will have to die to see Him in Heaven, right? So, I was puzzled by Jesus’ statement, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Was Jesus saying that I will live my best abundant life after I die and get to Heaven? It just didn’t make sense. Crumble.
One evening, a dear friend and I were talking. I believe it was back in 2018 maybe 2019. I’m certain it was after my “like family” best friendship ended in 2017, the friendship mentioned in this article: Hope is on the Horizon. Anyway, we had met at this new friend’s house around her dining table with our Bibles, pens, and notebooks in hand while the yummy scent of her family’s recently eaten dinner lingered in the air; it was very cozy. She and I were starting a Bible study; I don’t even remember what we were studying, but we started by talking about our lives and kids. Eventually we talked about the Bible study, and I remember telling her how I felt like there had to be more to being a Christian than what we were hearing. I told her it felt like something was missing. Why would Jesus say, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”? Did He mean I would have to physically die first? Not to mention that following the formula wasn’t a guarantee that I would go to Heaven. I might not make it. I might mess up sometime between that day and the day I died!! With this way of thinking, life didn’t feel abundant. It felt forced. It felt like I had to keep up with the formula perfectly; I had to try really hard, and hope that Jesus would let me in Heaven after death. So, in this Bible study with my friend, part of what we wanted to learn was: what did Jesus mean about giving us life abundantly? How could we have His abundant life now? Was that even possible? To answer these questions (and others) in our Bible studies together, she and I started excavating. The Christian formula had started to crumble anyway so, we started digging. We preferred the term excavate over deconstruct. We said we were excavating our faith, digging down to the firm Foundation of Jesus. In this process of excavation, as alluded to in this article: Hope is on the Horizon, I AM finding an abundant life now! Does that mean I’m living in a utopia where nothing goes wrong? Absolutely not! But when troubles come, I can count it joy, and I do have hope. BTW: I’m still excavating and still finding more of Jesus. I believe it is an unending process.
Photo by Trnava University on Unsplash
I plan to write several more articles regarding how I am continually finding Jesus now. If you don’t currently have an abundant life with Jesus, I hope that through the upcoming articles, you will begin to find Him and His abundant life. Here are some of the abundant life topics (not necessarily in this order): clarity of purpose of the Christian life, elements of healing: forgiveness, Sabbath, identity in Christ, practicing the Presence. Other abundant life-giving ideas to be written about include: all work is important, and the idea that we work with God, not for Him. I’m excited to get started on these; I hope and pray they will be beneficial!
Finally, I apologize that it has taken me so long to get a fourth article written. It’s not for lack of trying. I have 3 drafts of different topics, that I have started and then stopped because they felt forced, not Holy Spirit driven. Those articles will probably be published someday, but not now. As I have been praying for help and for Holy Spirit’s guidance, this topic of Abundant Life recently came to mind. This must be the right time and the right topic, because writing this article came very easily. I also received a God wink when I saw this video pop up: John 5:24 after I had decided on my title. Please remember: no matter what you believe, what you do or what you don’t do, YOU ARE LOVED just because you are you. Until next time, dear one.
Very few people understand the beauty of the journey in finding our path. I love reading each step. I especially loved how you use the term “crumble.” That’s the feeling if our faith is based on formula—crumble when things go differently. Beautiful.
Crumble. Excavate.