I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 NRSV
I grew up in the urban inner city of Philadelphia, PA, so navigating the terrain of forested areas was not part of my life lesson early on. In her book, Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World, M.R. O’Connor discusses wayfinding as the complex process of spatial navigation using memory and natural signs in the surrounding environment to ‘read’ an area to orient oneself in a given direction. Orienting is easier said than done. I’ll never forget the day I set out a bit anxious on the timed land navigation course at Ft. Benning, Georgia, Officer Candidate School. I had failed this course two weeks earlier, and if I was to be commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army, this was my last chance. I had the land navigation class, I could read a map and use a compass, but what I did not anticipate in the first go-around was a changing landscape that would not necessarily match the map’s topography. I became flustered the first time and gave up as time ran out.
If we are going to find our way on the Way – this journey with God, we must be committed to cultivating habits and practices that sustain us when everything around us is changing. It can become easy to forget who we are in Christ Jesus when the familiar is no longer easily accessible. Yet, our sincerest desire to abide in faithfulness and love of God and neighbor requires that we persevere and remain steadfast, unmovable, and bound by the grace of God.
In John 15:5, the writer of John presents Jesus’ strong imperative to the disciples to abide in him, and Christ, in turn, will abide in them. An undeniable mutuality critically defines the relationship of disciple and Savior. One of the ways of abiding is to remain steadfast in prayer, bible study, acts of mercy, and other spiritual disciplines. Embodying daily disciplines of spiritual practices helps undergird our resiliency in challenging times. Faithfull and repeated practicing of spiritual disciplines become like spiritual muscle memory, and you can be assured they will rise to the surface when facing times of uncertainty.
That day, as I set out with my map and compass on this second attempt, instead of panicking, I relied on the practices I had rehearsed over and over, but equally, I relied on my senses to ‘read’ the changing terrain around me.
Have you been faithfully tending to the spiritual disciplines that can sustain you in times of uncertainty?
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