I want to tell you a secret.
It is a story of my personal prison walls and a slow walk to abundant life.
The year is 2004. My husband, an Air Force Pilot, boomeranged across the globe flying in-and-out of combat zones. We had two children under the age of 2. (Hello crazy!) And my saving grace was afternoon nap time. With a cup of afternoon tea, and a side of thin mints, I would cuddle up on maroon sofa and study the book of John.
One afternoon I read John 10:10, “…I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Immediately I thought, “Yeah right! You have got to be kidding me. That might come in the next stage of my life. The one where my husband no longer deploys, my children don’t spill something at every meal, and I am not completely sleep deprived!”
It was all I could do to make it through dinner, bath and bedtime before I collapsed in the living room at 8:30 pm and fell soundly asleep. That is, until a hungry cry woke me. I was exhausted, drained by my children, and often angry and bitter about my husband’s frequent departures at my time of need!
Is this the abundant life Christ spoke about in John 10? Barely enough life to hover between total defeat and just barely squeaking by every day? I felt quite cynical.
Can anyone relate?
Yet, here is the kicker, I now have five children, my husband has twice the workload and responsibility, and I still have to be careful that the waves of bitterness do not drown me like they once did. God didn’t deliver me out of a hard place. But He did set my soul free to find abundance smack dab in the middle of the hard place.
Over the next few months as I sipped my afternoon tea, God whispered a melody to me that continues to play in my heart ever since. Throughout the I Am’s of Jesus in the book of John, there runs a continuous melody line. This melody is the word LIFE. Step-by-precious step the great I AM led me out of my Egypt of bitterness and anger, and into a land flowing with milk and honey. A land in which I found life abundant – spiritually joyful, satisfying, free, and richly deep.
And so the I Am invites all of us. Those whose lives are riddled with bitterness, anger, worry, loneliness, or depression. May our hearts be opened to abundant life and wide open spaces through the power of the I AM.
(Adapted from Wanting More: Following the I AM into Abundant Life)
Leave a Reply